Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

If you have been considering buying a replacement battery for your iPhone, iPad or MacBook, now is the time to do so.

Apple has, very quietly, announced that the out-of-warranty battery service fee is set to increase. While the company has not given would-be battery-replacers much notice, there is still time to take advantage of the current, lower pricing. This is particularly important to know if you're thinking of getting a new battery for your MacBook.

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This time of year is significant for various reasons, not least of which is that it is the start of a new year for those who follow the Gregorian calendar. In the world of technology, we're moving towards CES, but December/January has also been the period during which movie piracy has tended to peak.

In previous years, because of screeners being sent out for viewing by critics and judges ahead of the Oscars in a few months, this is when there has traditionally been a glut of big-name movies leaking before their official released dates. This year, there have been none.

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There are many reasons for the slow uptake of Windows 11, but fairly high on the list of what puts off many potential users is the number of frankly bizarre design changes Microsoft decided to make. A good example is the context menu that appears when right clicking on files and folder which the company saw fit to tweak the menu so there are far fewer options available.

It is possible to access the old style, classic context menu by Shift-right-clicking, but in a future update to Windows 11 Microsoft is planning to introduce a way to make this the default.

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The reputation of LastPass has taken quite a battering over the past year, with the handling of security incidents doing nothing to improve things. Just last week the company gave an update about a security breach that took place back in August, revealing that it had been more serious than first suggested.

But now the updated announcement from LastPass has been ripped to shreds by security experts with one denouncing it as being "full of omissions, half-truths and outright lies".

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Having revolutionized the way we browse the web, tabs made their way to File Explorer in Windows 11. Now, thanks to a premature -- and now-deleted -- tweet, we also know that Microsoft is looking to do the same with other apps.

A Microsoft employee shared a screenshot on Twitter that depicts an updated version of the Notepad app, complete with two open tabs. It is not known if the addition of tabs will come in the next Moment update for Windows 11, but it is something that is undergoing internal testing.

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Twitter has, without making an announcement, removed a feature that directed users towards suicide prevention services after searching for certain content.

The #ThereIsHelp feature was removed after Elon Musk issued an order to that effect. Sources familiar with the matter say that the removal is only temporary and that a revamped version will be launched in the future. But the social platform has been criticized not only for the timing -- Christmas is a tough time for many people -- but also for removing the existing support feature before having a replacement ready. [UPDATE -- the feature is now back. Despite the fact Twitter confirmed its removal, Musk used a series of tweets to denounce reports that it had temporarily been removed as 'fake news']

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Things have been more than a little turbulent at Twitter since Elon Musk took over at the company. Having overseen various controversial changes including an overhaul to the verification system, the CEO has now announced a feature that is likely to be rather less divisive -- View Count.

The feature is a very simple idea, revealing how many people have viewed a tweet. The information is public so you can see how popular other people's tweet are as well as monitoring your own viewing figures.

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Password management firm LastPass has issued an update about a security breach that was first revealed back in August. The news is not good; the data breach is significantly worse than initial reports suggested.

LastPass says that its investigations into the incident now show that the hackers were able to obtain customer vault data. The company points out that these vaults are home to both encrypted and unencrypted data, and tries to play down the significance of a threat actor gaining access to unencrypted data.

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Earlier this month, Microsoft released the KB5021237 and KB5021249 updates which it later confirmed were causing Hyper-V issues for some users.

Now the company has now released a pair of out-of-band patches to address the virtual machine problems. The KB5022553 and KB5022554 updates have been issued as emergency fixes for affected systems.

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A Microsoft security researcher has unearthed a security vulnerability in macOS which has been named Achilles.

Tracked as CVE-2022-42821, Jonathan Bar Or found that the flaw could be used to bypass the Gatekeeper security feature of macOS in order to execute malicious apps. Apple has now fixed the vulnerability in Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura versions of macOS.

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The curse of the problematic Windows update strikes again! Following the release of the KB5021233 update for Windows 10 last week, Microsoft has acknowledged that the cumulative security update is causing blue screens for some users.

The company is now investigating the cause the issue that leads to a BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) and a 0xc000021a error. The problem affects Windows 10 versions 20H2, 21H1, 21H2 and 22H2, and Microsoft has a workaround for users to try until a fix is developed.

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Google has announced that businesses can now apply to try out client-side encryption for Gmail on the web.

Now available in beta for a selection of Workspace users, the feature is one that was promised some time ago. Google says that the new encryption option means that "sensitive data in the email body and attachments are indecipherable to Google servers", but there will be disappointment that the security and privacy feature is not available for everyone.

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Internet Explorer has been in its death throes for quite some time, and now Microsoft is finally ready to put the browser out of its misery.

In less than two months, the company will release an update for Microsoft Edge, and this will permanently disabled Internet Explorer 11 "on certain versions of Windows 10 devices". The big day is February 14, 2023 -- Valentine's Day -- and is a different approach to the one Microsoft had previously said it would be using.

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Some of the biggest names in tech are joining forces to create the Overture Maps Foundation and develop interoperable open map data, and help build a rival to Google Maps.

The group is headed by the Linux Foundation and also included Microsoft, Amazon Web Service, TomTom and Facebook-owner Meta. The aim is to allow companies to contribute their own data to help compile up-to-date map data that "is complete, accurate, and refreshed as the physical world changes".

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Microsoft has updated the Universal License Terms for Online Services that apply to Azure to indicate that the service cannot be used to mine cryptocurrency.

The change appears in the Acceptable Use Policy section of the license terms that apply to all Microsoft Online Services, but the ban is not an outright one. While the criteria have not been revealed, it seems that there are circumstances in which the company may be willing to lift the ban on cryptomining.

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