The Treasury Department is investigating whether the crypto exchange allowed users in Iran to buy and sell digital tokens, said people with knowledge of the matter.

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UPDATE: Slack has confirmed the issue is now resolved.

"Customers should no longer be experiencing issues with sending messages, loading threads and uploading or downloading files. Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve this!"

Another outage hit Slack today, with users across the world reporting problems with the software.

The online collaboration tool went down for many users, affecting people as they tried to log in for work or try and get tasks done.

The issue began around 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm BST, mainly affecting users in the UK and Europe, who reported issues as they tried to log in and send messages.

Slack down

Thousands of Slack users initially flocked to outage tracker site DownDetector to report problems, with numbers spiking around 3pm BST.

The company first acknowledged the issue at 2.12pm BST, noting on its Slack Status page, "We are receiving multiple reports of threads not loading and some users are unable to send messages. We’re investigating and will let you know as soon as we have further information to share."

Half an hour later, the company added that although the situation was improving, "Customers may still be experiencing trouble in Slack, specifically with sending messages and loading threads."

This was then followed by what has been the last update at the time of publishing, which read, "Some customers may continue to experience trouble sending messages, loading threads and uploading or downloading files. We'll continue to provide further updates as soon as we know more. We thank you for your patience in the meantime."

Good news for PDF power-users and print-speed freaks looking to maximize efficiencies: the team behind popular PDF editor and converter PDFZilla has announced the launch of BulkPrinter. 

The new, Windows-only tool simplifies the printing of multiple documents across a range of formats - and it’s totally free. 

“BulkPrinter makes the process more efficient by allowing users to handily print their documents in batch, without having to handle them individually,” the company said. 

Bulk printing

(Image credit: PDFZilla)

Printing at volume with traditional small business printers has always been a slow process - especially when working with a range of file types. It’s this time-cost that the company seeks to address with BulkPrinter. 

Back when we reviewed PDFZilla, we praised its “clean, fast interface, and its intuitive design” - and it seems BulkPrinter is cut from the same cloth. 

With an interface designed for easy access, users only need to add their documents to the file list and hit Start Now. The free office software then automatically manages high-volume printing without the need for manual interventions that slam the brakes on the workflow.

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Supported formats include PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, TXT, JPG, GIF, TIF, and PNG - and they can all be added to the list and printed at once, so no more stopping and switching programs.

The volume-printing program features core customization options. Orientation, paper size, and page range can all be set by the user. The so-called compatible mode, ‘Print by Default Program’, even lets users print files through their default PDF program, rather than BulkPrinter.

For those printing images, the tool offers a simple ‘Image Fit to Page’, while spreadsheet users have the choice of printing worksheets on individual or multiple pages. Tick a box and users can also force all documents to print in black and white.

BulkPrinter is available to download now, free of charge - with support for 17 different languages, including English, German, Chinese, and Arabic.

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Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has unveiled a new monetization feature that seeks to share revenue between music artists and content creators on the social media platform. 

Music Revenue Sharing is designed to make it easier for creators to monetize videos even when using licensed music, with Meta championing it as “the first of its kind within the music industry,” helping the site’s content creators “access more popular music, deepening relationships with their fans.”

The service, powered by Meta’s Rights Manager - a content-match tool that searches images, videos, and audio across Facebook and Instagram for original, copyrighted content - lets creators use their favorite tracks in videos and still earn money from them. 

How does Music Revenue Sharing on Facebook work? 

Before content creators can start monetizing videos using licensed music, they must first be eligible for Facebook’s in-stream ads and meet the platform’s monetization eligibility standards, community standards, and music guidelines.

According to Meta, eligible videos must be 60 seconds or longer and uploaded to a Facebook page, contain a visual component (so, users can’t upload the song with a blank screen), and feature music samples that are covered by Music Revenue Sharing. Users can explore all songs covered by the deal in Facebook’s Licensed Music library. 

The Menlo Park-based business, meanwhile, assures users that it’ll continue working with music rights holders to expand the current list to help “bring creators and the music industry closer together, leading to more authentic connections with fans.”

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If a video meets the criteria set by Meta, content creators can expect 20% of the revenue share. The rest will go to Meta and music the rights holder.  However, on those ungenerous terms, it’s possible content creators will prefer to use open-license or royalty-free music and keep the full 100%. 

Music Revenue Sharing is available globally today. However, initially, creators will only earn money on videos delivered to US audiences, with the service expanding worldwide over the next few months. 

This latest unveiling builds on Meta’s on-going drive to help creators make more money on its platforms. In 2020, it revealed plans to pay users for live streaming content. Last week, the company announced the introduction of NFTs on Instagram, expanding the Facebook Stars and Facebook Reels Play bonus programs. 

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