Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Android Auto has long been about much more than getting from A to B, and there has been support for various messaging and music apps for some time. But now Google has announced a new update that not only expands entertainment options, but also allows for remote meetings while on the road.

The addition of support for WebEx by Cisco and Zoom sees Android Auto branching out into completely new territory, so you can engage in an audio-only meeting when driving. The company is also adding the Prime Video app for in-car entertainment, the Vivaldi browser app, as well as the Weather Channel app, and expanded support for digital car keys.

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It's the time of the month when Microsoft releases its regular security updates, and this September is no different. As the KB5030219 update is a security update, it is rolling out automatically to all Windows 11 users.

As well as numerous security fixes, the KB5030219 update removes a blank item from the Sticky Keys menu, a problem introduced by the previously released KB5029351 update.

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Regulators in France have ordered Apple to stop selling its iPhone 12 after the handset was found to produce electromagnetic radiation levels that are higher than permitted by EU safety rules.

The Agence nationale des fréquences (ANFR) has demanded that Apple withdraw the iPhone 12 from the French market until it is able to "adopt all necessary corrective measures" to bring it in line with regulations. Failure to do so will result in Apple being forced to recall all iPhone 12 handsets.

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Apple made a lot of announcements at its iPhone 15 and Apple Watch launch event, and all of the hardware has a hefty price tag attached to it. But there was also news about some freebies.

Of course, Apple is not giving away any hardware for free, but there are a number of major OS updates on the horizon for Mac and iPhone owners. Apple has now finally revealed when macOS Sonoma will launch, following the release of numerous beta versions over recent months -- and it is earlier than many people were expecting.

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Microsoft has announced the Xbox Mastercard, the result of a partnership with Barclays. The card will launch in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii later this month, and has no annual fee,

Initially available exclusively to Xbox Insiders, the credit card will ultimately be made available to everyone in the US. Aside from the lack of annual fee, there are other incentives for getting an Xbox Mastercard; every purchase made with the card earns points that can then be spent on games and add-ons at xbox.com.

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WhatsApp not only remains astoundingly popular, developers continue to refine existing features and add new capabilities at an astonishing rate. The latest beta version of the messaging app shows exciting signs that it may soon be possible to use WhatsApp to send and receive messages between other platforms.

This is an important -- and much-requested -- development because while WhatsApp has a colossal userbase, it is not yet ubiquitous. The fact remains that not everyone you may want to chat with is necessarily a WhatsApp user. In the future, this should not be a problem with the arrival of support for third-party chats.

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Drivers have long been the source of problems for Windows users, with security flaws, compatibility issues and other bugs blighting the experience of getting hardware to work as it should. Now Microsoft has announced plans that will shake up how drivers work in Windows.

The company has announced plans to not only end support for third-party printer drivers in Windows, but also to stop the provision of printer driver updates via Windows Update. The change is a significant one which Microsoft is phasing in over a number of years to reduce the potential negative impact for hardware manufacturer and users alike.

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Microsoft Paint has been the subject of ridicule for as long as it has existed, but much of the mockery is ill-placed these days. While it may not be the most advanced image editor in the world, there is a lot more to the app than it is generally given credit for.

Microsoft is not done with development of the app, updates rolled out to the latest Insider builds of Windows 11 show that the company is on the verge of bringing a Photoshop-level tool to Paint: background removal.

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The vast majority of software bugs are, almost by definition, a problem. A bug can cause unexpected behavior, reduce performance, and cause endless other issues. But there is a bug in Windows 11's File Explorer that actually makes it better.

If you've ever thought that File Explorer would benefit from a speed boost, there's some good news. A strange bug can be exploited to noticeably improve performance in a split second.

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It is now a couple of weeks since a Windows 11 update resulted in a large number of people suddenly seeing UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR error messages.

At the time, the finger of blame was pointed at Microsoft, although the company was quick to suggest that the fault may be elsewhere. With the issue affecting MSI motherboards, the hardware manufacturer offered up a workaround. Now MSI has released a BIOS update that properly fixes the problem for Intel 700 and 600 series boards.

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There is so much focus on AI from the likes of Google, Microsoft et al that it's easy to forget that there are other things happening in the tech world. Case in point: Google's new 3D look for Android.

Sadly, we're not talking about a three-dimensional mobile operating system offering virtual reality or anything like that. Google is simply updating its branding, and this means a new logo for Android.

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Swap-unwanted-stuff-for-free site Freecycle has acknowledged a security breach that took place at the end of last month. Hackers were able to access a wealth of data including usernames, User IDs, email addresses and passwords.

The organization says that it has notified the "appropriate US authorities" of the incident, as well as the Information Commissioner's Offier (ICO) in the UK. Few details of what happened have been revealed, but Freecycle is advising all members to change their account passwords as a security measure.  

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Hot on the heels of a reminder about the end of support for Windows 11 21H2, Microsoft has reminded everyone that Windows will soon have TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 disabled.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) has been around for a number of years, with TLS 1.0 not only dating back to 1999, but having been superseded by far more secure versions. TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.2 are now very much the norm, so Microsoft is following others in the industry by dropping 1.0 and 1.1.

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Having just delivered an impressive update to the much-loved text editor Notepad, Microsoft has revealed that its (slightly) more advanced sibling, WordPad, is to be discontinued.

Serving as a halfway house between the barebones Notepad and a fully-fledged word processor, WordPad has been a feature of Windows for decades -- having been preceded by Write . But now Microsoft feels that the time has come to pull the plug, saying that the app is now longer being developed and will be killed ff.

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There is now a little over a month until Windows 11 21H2 reaches end of service. When October 10 rolls around, the operating system will no longer receive updates.

With just a few weeks to go, Microsoft has issued a reminder to users of this two-year-old version of Windows 11 that support is coming to an end. More than this, the company has warned users of Windows 11 21H2 that they should expect to be forcibly upgraded to a supported version of the OS very soon.

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