Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Facebook's parent company, Meta, has announced a major shift for the social networking, saying it will no longer use facial recognition to identify users in photographs.

As well as closing down the facial recognition system, the company will also delete over a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates. Meta says that it is part of "company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in our products", and it is move that will be welcomed by privacy advocates.

An odd problem has been found in Windows 11 that sees dozens, scores, hundreds or even thousands of empty folders being created in a directory of the System32 folder.

The fact that the folders are empty means that there is no danger of hard disks filling up, but it's a bizarre bug that has many Windows users scratching their heads. If you're affected by the issue, you'll find that your drive is littered with large numbers of folders with names ending in .tmp.

Microsoft may have stolen a lot of the attention with the launch of Windows 11, but Apple has also released the latest update to its own operating system -- macOS 12.

The rollout of macOS Monterey started last week, and as the update spreads, users are experiencing serious issues when performing the upgrade. More and more reports are emerging of Mac owners ending up with computers that are very unstable, or won't even power up.

Computer users from a certain era may remember with fondness, Clippy. The animated paperclip was an assistant in Microsoft Office, on hand to answer questions, and popping to life every now and then with hints and tips.

While some celebrated its death when the character was dropped, there were also many that mourned its passing. For anyone who falls into the second category, there is good news: Clippy is back!

The seemingly never-ending stream of printer problems caused by Windows updates shows no sign of abating.

Following the Patch Tuesday releases a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft has added warnings of known issues to the support pages for the KB5006674 and KB5006670 updates. Printer-related errors including 0x000006e4 (RPC_S_CANNOT_SUPPORT), 0x0000007c (ERROR_INVALID_LEVEL), and  0x00000709 (ERROR_INVALID_PRINTER_NAME) are among those the company says users may experience.

A new release cycle has started for the PowerToys collection of utilities. Kicking off with PowerToys v0.49, Microsoft promises that this and the upcoming batch of releases include "exciting new updates".

And things get off to a great start with the arrival of not only the Video Conference Mute tool in the stable build, but also a brand-new utility -- Find My Mouse. There are also numerous fixes and improvements as a well as a UI update for PowerRename.

Meta, TCFKAF (the company formerly known as Facebook) appears to be working on a range of smartwatches that bear more than a passing resemblance to the Apple Watch.

At least two wearables are thought to be in development, one of which is codenamed Milan. But what is causing the greatest interest is an image of a smartwatch featuring a notch that is home to a camera.

Earlier today we shared details of a handy free app called TopNotch that makes it possible to hide (or at least disguise) the notch that Apple has added to the latest version of the MacBook Pro.

But it seems that even Apple is aware that the position of the notch is not going to be to everyone's liking. The company has published a new support document that explains how apps can be scaled so they do not make use of the notched area of the screen. Here's what you need to know.

Microsoft's decision to bring Android app support to Windows 11 has caused responses ranging from hatred, through ambivalence to love. Partnering with Amazon, however, means that the Windows Subsystem for Android has access to a slightly limited range of apps, resulting in people seeking ways to sideload APKs.

A few days ago, we looked at one of the techniques that can be used to sideload apps, but it was a bit fiddly and complicated -- certainly not something everyone would be happy undertaking. But by turning to the free app WSATools, sideloading Android apps in Windows 11 is made so much simpler.

Apple is famous for its attention to detail and quality designs, but even such a well-respected company is not immune to making design decisions that divide opinion.

One of the controversial choices made by Apple was to add a notch to the iPhone, using it to house the selfie camera; it was a decision that was loved and hated in just about equal measure. With the recent launch of the latest MacBook Pro, the same notch has landed on Apple's top-end laptops, once again polarizing users. If you fall on the side of hating the notch, there are steps you can take to hide it.

Microsoft is said to be working on a new addition to its Surface range, with a new laptop in the pipeline to compete with Chromebooks.

Aimed mainly at the K-12 education sector, the project is codenamed Tenjin and goes hand in hand with a new version of Windows 11. Said to be called Windows 11 SE, the operating system will run on much cheaper and more basic hardware than its big brother.

Microsoft is giving Windows 10 users a taste of Windows 11 by giving them access to the new and updated Store app and the new features it has to offer.

In addition to a whole new look, the new version of the Microsoft Store includes support for Win32 apps as well as Disney+ movies. For now, it is a limited number of users who will have access to the updated store, but it won't be long before everyone with Windows 10 will be able to use it.

Ahead of next month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released a preview version of the KB5006738 update for Windows 10.

There's quite a lot to this cumulative update, but what is probably going to be considered the highlight is the fact that it addresses various printer-related issues that have been plaguing Windows users for some time now.

It's three weeks since Windows 11 started to roll out, and now Microsoft is starting its push to encourage people who can upgrade to do just that.

Part of this drive is delivering the PC Health Check app to Windows 10 machine, giving users a quick way to check whether they can upgrade to Windows 11 or not. The app is being pushed out as part of the KB5005463 update and the rollout is likely to irritate as the automatic update essentially forces the Windows 11 compatibility checker onto people.

One of the headline features of Windows 11 that Microsoft promoted ahead of launch is Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) -- in short, support for Android apps. It is only a few days since the feature was made available, but there are numerous limitations. In addition to only being available to Windows Insiders participating in the Beta Channel in the US, users are forced to obtain their apps from the Amazon App Store.

In the real world, of course, practically no one uses the Amazon App Store; Google Play is where the action (and a full quota of apps) is to be found. Now, someone has managed to hack something together that makes it possible to access Google Play and install Android apps from this store in Windows 11. You will need, among other things, access to Ubuntu or another Linux distro.