Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Apple has removed from its App Store, ICEBlock – described as “Waze but for ICE sightings”. The app launched back in April after Donald Trump announced a crackdown on immigration.

ICEBlock provides people with a way to report sightings of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents. The US Department of Justice was among those voicing concerns that agent tracking put people’s lives at risk, particularly in light of attacks on ICE facilities.

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The Spotify recommendation algorithm is problematic, and easily sent askew by random tracks you listen to. The company has just announced that it is rolling out the option for users around the world to exclude individual tracks

This may sound like something we’ve heard before, but previous exclusion options have related to playlists. Now you can stop that one song your kid keeps listening to from causing your recommendations to be in a similar vein.

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A group of hackers calling itself the Crimson Collective says that it has compromised GitLab instances belonging to Red Hat and stolen hundreds of gigabytes of data.

Red Hat has confirmed that it has suffered a data breach, but is yet to provide much in the way of details. The hacking group says that it managed to access 28,000 internal development repositories, and has stolen almost 570GB of compressed data.

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Image-hosting service Imgur is currently blocking UK users  from accessing its content. The move comes after regulators threatened to impose fines on the company.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is unhappy with how Imgur – and its parent company MediaLab – handles children’s data. The ICO had conducted investigations into various technology firms as it checked their compliance with online safety laws.

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We have known that the day was coming, and now it has arrived. Smack in the middle of H2, Microsoft has finally made Windows 11 25H2 available – for what it is worth.

While preview builds of Windows 11 25H2 have been available to Windows Insiders for a while, and to seekers more recently. But now the rollout to everyone and anyone is underway. What can you expect from this most recent “feature update” to Windows 11? Not – as even Microsoft admits – very much, really.

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It is a little while since Google first started to use an updated version of its colorful G logo. The design revamp saw the company moving away from the four colored blocks of color towards something with more flow.

The graduated look of the G was introduced with little in the way of fanfare, and quite what Google had planned was not clear. Now, having seemingly tested the waters by trying out the new look in a limited number of places, the company is ready to use it more extensively.

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Meta has announced that it is launching a subscription service in the UK that will let users of Facebook and Instagram pay to avoid ads.

The plan has already been rejected by the European Union, but this does not affect post-Brexit UK. Separate subscription tiers are available for the social platforms’  mobile apps and the web. For anyone unwilling or unable to pay, the Facebook and Instagram experience will remain riddled with ads.

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With just a month to go until the official end of support for Windows 10, Microsoft has been forced to cede ground. The company will now offer a year of ESU (Extended Support Updates) available completely free of charge, no strings attached, for people living in the European Economic Area (EEA).

While free access to the ESU program is available in other parts of the world, it is only available with conditions. In Europe, these conditions no longer apply.

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There is a lot to feel frustrated about in relation to YouTube, but Google has announced a change that helps to squash one of its annoyances.

While in-video ads are becoming increasingly difficult to avoid – short of paying for the privilege – there is now a way to hide “end screens”. These short snippets at the end of the video you have just watched are a form of advertising used by creators to promote their other content.

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Logitech has announced an interesting new addition to its range of peripherals – a wireless keyboard that is powered by light. Despite the name, the Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 Keyboard does not require sunlight, with the company’s proprietary Logi LightCharge technology allowing it to charge up using any source of light.

With the launch of the Signature Slim Solar+ K980 (and the Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 for Business), Logitech is helping to address one of the issues that arises when using a wireless keyboard – battery life. There is no need to manually charge this keyboard, and the changes of running of juice are incredibly small.

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Subscribers to Disney+ are being asked to dig deeper into their pockets as the cost of the streaming service goes up again. In what is becoming an annual occurrence, subscription charges are increasing across the board.

If you were hoping that opting for an ad-supported tier would help with avoiding price increases, think again – even this subscription package is going up. With Disney having irritated many of its customers after the (since reversed) decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel, the company should expect an even frostier reception than normal to asking people for more money each month.

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Microsoft has been forced to release an unscheduled update for Windows 11. The newly unleashed KB5068221 update addresses issues with Microsoft Office running in virtualized environments.

For those who have been experiencing the issue, the fact that this update fixes things is reason enough to install it. But Microsoft has also used this update release to share details of a workaround for a SMBv1 share problem.

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WhatsApp has announced the launch of message translations after years of requests from users. Gone are the days of copying and pasting foreign language text into a translation too – everything is now taken care of in the app.

The aim is to allow for easy communication, wiping out language barriers. This is something that can benefit users having one-to-one chats, but it is also helpful in group chats where two or more languages may be in use. For now, it is something that is rolling out to Android and iOS users, and users with Android devices have access to a unique extra feature.

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Facebook is primarily about staying in touch with people, but Facebook Dating is about starting relationships. It seems unlikely that Facebook is the first place people think of when it comes to finding partners, and Meta has just decided to add new features to Facebook Dating and use it as a reason to remind the world of its existence.

Despite the rather older demographic that Facebook generally attracts, Meta says that “hundreds of thousands of young adults in the US and Canada create Facebook Dating profiles every month”. It is for these people that a dating assistant and Meet Cute feature are being added.

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Having announced plans earlier this year to become an “AI native” company, Grindr has caused ire by introducing new gAI (its own artificial intelligence tech, pronounced “gay-I”) on an opt out basis.

Grindr users have been expressing anger in recent days as they encounter an in-app pop-up informing them that AI is now being used for a personalized experience. While it is possible to opt out of this – as many people want to do so – the company has been heavily criticized for not making this optional more accessible, and for opting everyone into using AI by default int the first place.

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