Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

With strange serendipitous timing, just as the free upgrade period for Windows 10 is coming to an end, Microsoft is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of Windows Server. Way back in 1996, the company unleashed Windows NT 4.0 Server onto an unsuspecting world. The rest, as they say, is history.

Described as the operating system that would 'knock the socks of Unix' Windows NT 4.0 Server stuck around for four years before being replaced by the enterprise-specific Windows 2000 Server. With laughably low system requirements -- 133 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM and 1 GB of disk space -- this was the start of a journey incorporating centralization and security.

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With a desktop word processor and spreadsheet, you have great power to create a range of documents. The move to the cloud and mobile means that popular Office suites have been ported to mobile platforms, and this usually means missing out on key features -- like add-ons.

Today, this changes as Google has announced that Android add-ons for Docs and Sheets are now available. This means that Google's mobile office tools can be extended with add-ons like DocuSign, Scanbot and Zoho CRM.

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Today -- the day before the free upgrade to Windows 10 expires, and just a few more days before the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update -- Microsoft is tweaking the minimum system requirements for the operating system.

Specifically, hardware manufacturers will have to include TPM 2.0 in PCs, smartphones and tablets if they are to be considered Windows 10 compatible. TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) is an added hardware-based security layer that helps to protect user data,

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It's something that Android users have been begging for -- the ability to buy an app once, and share it with members of the family. Until now, one way around the problem was to create a shared family account that could be used to download everything, but now Google has a better solution: Google Play Family Library.

This new feature not only lets you share purchased apps with up to six family members, but also games, movies, TV shows and books. It's something that could save Android-using families a good deal of money, and it's rolling out right now.

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Microsoft is on a mission to destroy Steam with Windows 10. At least that is what Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games believes. He says that Microsoft's love of UWP (Universal Windows Platform) apps means that Win32 apps are gradually being driven to extinction.

In an interview with Edge magazine, Sweeney says that he predicts Microsoft will release patches for Windows 10 over the next few years that will render Steam "progressively worse and more broken".

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A Google Project Zero hacker has discovered a zero-day vulnerability in the password manager LastPass that could lead to accounts being completely compromised.

The security flaw can be triggered by visiting a malicious website, and it has been confirmed to be an issue by white hat security researcher Tavis Ormandy. He has filed a full report to LastPass with a view to getting the vulnerability patched.

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Researchers at security firm Bastille warn that many wireless keyboards can be very easily intercepted so hackers can see exactly what is being typed. With a very simple dongle called Keysniffer, it is possible to snoop on usernames, passwords and anything else that is being typed from up to 250 feet away.

In all, Bastille found that eight manufacturers produce keyboards -- meaning there are millions in use -- which use unencrypted radio communication to transmit easily captured clear text. The problem affects non-Bluetooth devices from the likes of Anker, Hewlett-Packard, Kensington and Toshiba.

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The rocky road to finding a replacement to the Safe Harbour data transfer agreement appears to have become a little smoother. The successor to the EU-US arrangement is Privacy Shield, and European regulators have said it will be permitted to run to at least a year without intervention.

Having been deemed unsuitable because of the level of access it gave the US to European data, Safe Harbor's replacement has been a long time coming. The head nod from regulators will be widely welcomed by the tech industry, as well as those disturbed by NSA surveillance revelations.

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Microsoft today announced a series of updates for its Office apps which help to make the suite more intelligent than ever. There's a strong focus on workflow and efficiency, and things kick off with the Researcher tool. This provides context-sensitive research materials that can be accessed from within Word and quickly added to a document complete with properly formatted citations.

Microsoft says that Researcher will continue to expand to include "sources like national science and health centers, well-known encyclopedias, history databases and more". But this is far from being the only new tool to be added in the latest monthly update.

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Julian Assange promised to deliver a cache of emails that would harm 'liberal war hawk' Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign. Living up to Assange's promise, Wikileaks delivered the goods.

It wasn't long before controversy struck, but this was not because of the content of the emails. The communication between US Democratic Party committee members was shared on Facebook but it didn't take long for the content to be blocked, leading to accusations of censorship.

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The TechCrunch website was today hit by a hacker group going by the name of OurMine. The group describes itself as "an elite hacker group known for many hacks showing vulnerabilities in major systems".

The hack was -- on the face of it, at least -- not particularly malicious, and came across as almost polite. Rather than completely defacing the site, OurMine chose instead to simply post a news story to indicate that the CMS had been breached.

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A few months back, we took a look at the Chuwi Hi12, a low-cost tablet that we compared to the Surface Pro 4 and iPad Pro. Now the company has released a slightly smaller -- and even cheaper -- model, the Chuwi Vi10 Plus.

With a 10.8-inch screen, the Chuwi Vi10 Plus is available in two variations. The first model comes with Android-based Remix OS 2.0 installed, while the second is a dual boot unit that has both Windows 10 and Remix OS 2.0 installed.

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Rumors started to circulate in recent days that all was not well at Cyanogen Inc. Reports suggested that the company was not only shedding a fifth of its staff, but was also moving away from its Android-based CyanogenMod to focus instead on apps.

After a few days of silence, the company has now come forward to set the record straight. Cyanogen Inc wants to make it clear that its operating system is here to stay, and there are no plans to become an app company.

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We're used to the idea of filtering spam emails from our inbox these days, but there is also the problem of spam phone calls. These are not just a nuisance, but may also be the start of scams. Google is pushing out an update to its Phone app that helps to keep you protected.

It's a simple idea. Whenever a suspicious call comes through, a warning is displayed on screen to let you know that you might want to either ignore the call, or take care if you answer.

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You've probably noticed that it can be hard to make out details on Google Maps. You're not alone; Google has noticed too, and the company has just launched a redesigned version of the essential travel tool.

The changes apply to the desktop, iOS and Android versions of Google Maps and the most immediately apparent difference is the new color palette -- much subtler and easier on the eyes. But Google has also cleaned things up to improve visibility, and added new 'areas of interest'.

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