Latest Technology News

Increasingly we're surrounded by devices that have microphones. Not just our computers and smartphones, but smart home devices like Alexa and Echo and even our TVs.

The problem is these mics are not just accepting commands, they're listening to what's going on in the background too.

Facebook recently announced that it wants to do more to cut down on the amount of spam and clickbait that appears in users' News Feeds. Now the social networking company is putting the wheels in motion, working on updates that will help it to identify such content.

In the crosshairs are two different types of clickbait headline: those that exaggerate information, and those that leave out key pieces of information in a bid to get readers to click through. Facebook is also paying more attention to individual posts rather than focusing on the overall output of accounts and pages.

The European Commission has hit Facebook with a €110 million ($122 million) fine for "providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover". The Commission previously expressed concern that the social media giant had not correctly communicated planned changes to its privacy policy.

The changes meant that Facebook was able to match data gathered from WhatsApp users to their Facebook account, even though the company said this was not the case. The "proportionate and deterrent fine on Facebook" is designed not only to punish Facebook, but also to send a message to other companies involved in mergers and acquisitions.

There's no getting away from the fact that Android has something of an issue with dangerous and malicious apps. Google's latest weapon in the fight against such apps is Google Play Protect which uses machine learning and app usage analysis to weed out the bad guys.

The new system sees Google not only checking apps as they are submitted to the Play Store, but monitoring the apps you already have installed. By analyzing app behavior, Google is able to identify suspicious software that may have slipped through the net or has been installed from outside of the Pay Store.

With Android phones, just as with the iPhone, the focus has long been on the latest and greatest hardware. But this ignores the fact that not everyone in the world has an ultra-powerful handset. This is something that Google recognizes, and its solution is Android Go.

Android Go is an optimized version of Android that’s designed to be used on less-powerful, cheap phones. By this, Google means phones that could have under 1GB of RAM, and the operating system -- which is essentially an offshoot of Android O -- is due to make an appearance in 2018.

Fire up the Twitter app on your phone or tablet, or visit the Twitter website, and you'll probably be greeted by a message inviting you to check your settings. And you may well want to do so. Twitter is introducing key changes to its privacy policy which will enable it to use more personal data to personalize the user experience. In other words, ads and data sharing.

At the same time, the company is adding new controls which enable you to stop tailoring content to you based on your location, interests and other data. A new Your Twitter Data is a nod to increased transparency which not only shows you what data Twitter is storing about you, but allows you to control how it is used -- to a certain extent.

Today was day one of Google I/O and there was no shortage of news. To name a few, the search giant is bringing its assistant to iPhone, Smart Reply to Gmail on mobile, and voice-calling to Google Home. These things should be very interesting to both consumers and technology enthusiasts.

With I/O being a developer conference, however, not all of the news is necessarily consumer-focused. Case in point, there was some rather big developer news that didn't get as much attention. You see, Google announces that it is making five of its "Firebase" SDKs open source.

HPE has unveiled a hugely powerful new platform which it believes can help usher in a potential new age of computing.

The latest offering from its "The Machine" research project, the new prototype comes with a whopping 160TB of memory, spread across 40 physical nodes -- the equivalent of 6,000 Blu-Ray discs.

The IT industry is booming and everyone, from small organizations to massive Fortune 500 companies, is hiring right now. For IT pros, this is good news.

However, the truth is that most don’t know how to get hired by the companies they want to work for.

Android can be a bit of a pain in the butt, as new versions of the operating system don't reach all devices -- even new ones. Unlike iOS where Apple provides updates to all of its devices for years, many Android manufacturers seldom ever issue updates. Heck, it is possible to buy a phone or tablet and never get an OS update!

The best way to avoid such madness is to buy a Nexus or Pixel device directly from Google. This will guarantee you a reasonable amount of updates, although not on the same level as iOS. If you own a Nexus or Pixel device, I have good news. Starting today, you can download the first official Android "Oreo" Beta. While Oreo is not yet the official name, many folks are predicting it to eventually be named after the famed cookie.

Google Home is getting smarter. Today at Google I/O, Google revealed that the Amazon Echo rival will not only be spreading to more countries this summer (Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan specifically) but it will benefit from more new features than you can shake a stick at.

In all, there are more than 50 new features coming to the smart little device including Proactive Assistance, integration with the likes of Soundcloud and the free tier of Spotify, as well as hands-free voice calling. There's also expanded Bluetooth support to transform Google Home into a more useful speaker, and much more.

Two thirds of consumers in the UK would "break up" with a brand if it suffers a data breach.

That's according to a new report by Talend which highlights the importance of businesses engaging with customers to ensure they provide high-quality data security.

Yes, the rumors were true (as they so often are when it comes to Google) -- the search giant announced at its I/O developer conference today that its personal assistant is coming to the iPhone.

As you might expect (and as is the case with Microsoft’s Cortana), you won’t be able to replace Siri with Google Assistant, instead you’ll need to summon it through a dedicated app. That’s not the only downside.

Today is the start of Google I/O 2017 -- be sure to watch the keynote here. There will be plenty of interesting announcements from the company. While much of it will be developer focused, there is sure to be news that will tickle the fancy of consumers too.

Gmail is one of Google's most popular services, and today, the company announces that it is bringing a cool feature to it -- Smart Reply. What is it? Well, the search giant's computers will read your emails, and then offer suggested replies. The service will even use machine learning to improve by reading your replies too. Understandably, some people will have privacy concerns.

When Microsoft rolled out the previous Windows 10 Redstone 3 build to Insiders (Build 16193), it looked as if the new Story Remix feature was going to be included. However, it turns out the software giant had other plans, and only made it available to a select group of testers (of which I’m lucky enough to be one).

Microsoft says that the "large majority of Windows Insiders in the Fast ring should have Story Remix right now", however, and you can check by launching the Photos app which it’s part of. (If it's not there, and you want to try it, you can request access by sending an email to [email protected].) There’s no such confusion with this week’s new release, Build 16199, as everyone can try all of the new features today -- and there are quite few of those.