Timed to coincide with the release of the second half of season two of Wednesday, Netflix has announced an update to its Moments feature. Introduced last year, Moments gives Netflix a way to “bookmark” a point in a show so you can share it with friends, or just use it as a handy way to jump to a favorite scene.

With the update to Moments, Netflix is now making it possible to define a start and end point for such scenes so you can create shareable clips from thing you have been watching. While the launch is being tied to Wednesday, Netflix uses the announcement to promote KPop Demon Hunters as well.

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The inescapability of AI continues, and Meta is at the forefront. WhatsApp has already liberally coated itself in features driven by artificial intelligence, and now there are more.

This time around, things are fairly innocuous. The chat platform has now added the option of using AI backgrounds within video chats.

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If you are an Amazon Prime customer who has been sharing account benefits – such as free shipping – with your friends, things are about to change. Amazon has announced that Amazon Family is replacing the Prime Invitee Program, and it is not just a name change.

Starting next month, it will only be possible to share Prime benefits with people who live in the same household as the account holder. This echoes the stricter rules being enforced by Google to prevent the sharing of YouTube Family Premium with people who live at different addresses.

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A judge has ruled that Google will not have to sell its Chrome browser after the Department of Justice proposed this last year. But as part of the ruling, the court says that the company will have to change some things about the way it operates.

The short version is that Google will no longer be allowed to make exclusivity deals relating to search, Google Assistant, Gemini, or Chrome. In the ruling, Judge Amit Mehta said that the US government has “overreached” when pushing for Chrome to be sold off.

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Microsoft has released PowerToys 0.94 with the joyous news that the v0.94 release cycle is “focused on new features, stability, optimization improvements, and automation”.

This is a big release – PowerToys 0.94 has a lot of new stuff in it, but there are two things that stand out. The first is a shortcut conflict detection feature which helps track down duplicated keyboard shortcuts. The second is fuzzy search within PowerToys Settings – which is important as the suite of tools is now a colossal collection. But, of course, there is more. Much more.

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Microsoft has gone all in with its embrace of Android and its various moves towards making Windows 11 play nicely with Google’s mobile operating system.

We’ve already seen the Link to Windows app get some serious attention, and most recently Microsoft added a very Apple-like option to resume using a mobile app in Windows. An as-yet unannounced feature is clipboard sharing, and this has been unearthed in a preview build of Windows 11.

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The MKV format (Matroska Video) is one that has been around for a very long time now, and it is loved for its high quality and flexibility. It has been supported by many web browsers, and even Windows 10, for quite some time, but not Firefox.

But now Mozilla is taking action to address this. Some eight years after a Bugzilla post requested the addition of MKV support to the browser, a developer has been assigned the task of implementing MKV playback in Firefox. So, what happens now?

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For many people, Google Maps is absolutely indispensable, and Google is about to make the navigation tool even more useful in Android 16. Taking advantage of a new feature introduced in the latest version of its mobile operating system, Google Maps is gaining useful Live Updates support.

Live Updates are a new type of notification that are used in very specific circumstances – such as flight tracking, delivery tracking, or navigation. Google is experimenting with Google Maps integration and, if it is done correctly, it could be a game-changer.

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Google has taken the unusual move of addressing claims about a major Gmail security issue – claims the company says are “entirely false”.

Insisting that “Gmail’s protections are strong and effective”, Google does not specify which claims it is referring to or where they stem from. What is clear, though, is that the company has been rattled by whoever has tried to bring into question the security of its email platform.

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It was inevitable that it would happen one day, and that day appears to have arrived. YouTube is getting stricter about how a Premium Family plan can be used.

The rules that apply to YouTube Family Premium are not changing, but YouTube is now seemingly enforcing restrictions that it was previously happy to turn a blind eye to.

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With the UK having recently brought the Online Safety Act into force, age verification laws are having a huge effect on traffic to web sites. Predictably, sites which comply with age verification requirements have noticed a marked drop-off in visitor numbers, while the opposite is true for non-compliant sites.

In the UK, it is – currently – only pornographic sites that are supposed to implement age verification (although other sites are supposed to take action to prevent minors from accessing adult material as well). Working via a combination of facial scans and documentation checks, the impact of the law has been felt very quickly.

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WhatsApp has addressed a serious security flaw in certain versions of its app. The vulnerability was a zero-click exploit, which the company says was being used to target specific users.

No details have been provided about those who were being targeted, so it is not clear whether they are celebrities, people linked to businesses, or something else. What is interesting, however, is the fact that it was Apple users who had been single out.

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If you have more than one Android device, you have probably used the Google Play Store to install apps on a device other than the one in your hand. The ability to ‘remotely’ install apps in this way is a great time saver, and Google is expanding the management features available to users.

If you can install an app on not only the device in front of you but also another linked to your account, why not uninstall it in the same way? Technically, you can, but Google has made it so awkward that it puts most people off – until now.

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Microsoft is of the opinion that Windows 11 25H2 – the next big update for Windows 11 – is ready for public consumption. Although the update has not yet been given a full, formal release, it is now available as a public preview.

This means that Windows Insiders signed up to the Release Preview channel. However, Microsoft is yet to confirm just when the update will be made available to everyone. At the moment the company is not being any more specific than referring to “general availability later this calendar year”.

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Instagram has a handful of updates to explore – some available to everyone, others in testing with a smaller group. First up there are updates to the handling of DMs, something Instagram is billing as being aimed at creators.

While creators’ inboxes are likely to be busier than the average person, everyone can use the new DM tools which provide new ways to sort and filter messages. Another exciting development sees the testing of picture-in-picture video mode for viewing Reels.

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