Later this month -- June 28 specifically -- Google is to launch a new tool: Backup and Sync. Aimed primarily at consumers, the tool is designed to backup files and photos, and make them accessible from any device.

Backup and Sync is described as "the latest version of Google Drive for Mac/PC, which is now integrated with the Google Photos desktop uploader," and for most users it will completely replace Drive. Corporate and enterprise users are advised to hold out until the release of Drive File Stream later in the year, but for everyone else, Backup and Sync opens up the possibility of automatically backing up entire hard drives.

5G networks will need to be more flexible than ever before in order to cope with a huge surge in connectivity, according to one of the UK’s top experts.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, director of the 5G innovation center at the University of Surrey, has urged technology providers to work together to ensure the networks will be ready in time.

Facebook's Safety Check feature has become one of the easiest ways of checking up on loved ones when disaster strikes. It also gives people in the affected area the opportunity to let friends and family know that they're OK, and today Facebook is adding a number of new options, including fundraising.

Starting off in the US, people will now be able to start a fundraiser from within Safety Check to help raise money for those in need. These can be for personal or charitable causes, and the feature makes it easy for others to make donations. There are also other changes that make Safety Check more useful.

The negative attention that Kodi has been attracting recently continues. A number of high-profile add-ons, such as Phoenix, have disappeared recently as interest in the piracy potential for the media player increases.

The latest victim appears to be TVAddons, a site which lists unofficial Kodi add-ons. The site was sued last week in a federal court in Texas, so the disappearance is not entirely surprising. But the removal of DNS records -- rendering the site inaccessible -- without any explanation is a little strange.

In case you haven't been following the news about 23-year-old Internet company acquisitions, Verizon announced 11 months ago that it had entered into an agreement to buy Yahoo for $4.83 billion. That deal, with some modifications, was officially approved and finalized yesterday, and it is expected to be completely closed on June 13.

When that happens, the telecommunications giant plans to combine those newly acquired assets with AOL, which it also owns, into a new media conglomerate. And of course, when you hear the word "combine," the next word you'll hear is "layoffs."

Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act -- the legislation used to permit the NSA to conduct online surveillance -- is due to expire at the end of the year. We have already seen a number of the big names from the world of technology calling for a number of changes during reform.

As part of the reform, officials had promised that they would reveal broad details about the number of American citizens about whom information has been, and is, collected. This is no longer the case. The Director of National Intelligence has performed a u-turn on the promise.

Creating add-ons for multiple web browsers can be a nightmare for developers, but Mozilla wants to simplify things. By introducing WebExtensions APIs it is going to become much easier to make extensions that work in multiple web browsers with only minor changes.

Based on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the aim is to further standardize the APIs to make it even easier to share extensions between browsers. Mozilla is now pushing the technology in the hope that it will gain momentum and a growing following.

Donald Trump may not be the first US president to take to Twitter, but he's certainly proved unique in the way he uses the social platform. Tweets have become his public mouthpiece, used to issue train-of-thought broadcasts, as well as plenty of oddities -- it's going to be some time before "covfefe" is forgotten.

But while many are pleased to see Trump issuing statements through an accessible medium, critics on both sides of the political spectrum have voiced concern about his outpourings. Importantly, the American public now believes that the president tweets too much.

Anyone looking for unlimited cloud storage now has one less option available to them. Amazon is dropping the unlimited storage option for Amazon Drive, meaning that the largest package now available is 30TB.

The unlimited tier has been with us for two years, but it's no longer available for new subscribers, and anyone currently signed up will find their storage space drops when renewal time rolls around. It's not all bad news, however. Amazon Prime subscribers still have access to unlimited cloud storage for photos.

Donald Trump is just one example of politicians using social media to get their messages out. With President Trump, Twitter acts very much as a one-way means of communications -- Facebook wants to make the channels between elected officials and constituents a two-way street.

As such, the social network is launching three new features -- Constituent Badges, Constituent Insights and District Targeting -- to help users get in touch with their elected representatives. These are the latest attempts by Facebook to increase meaningful civic engagement through its service while fighting back complaints about fake news.

Researchers from the Kromtech Security Research Center have discovered an unprotected database online that includes information on about 10 million cars sold in the US.

As well as data such as VIN and details of payment plans, the database also includes detailed information about owners, such as name, address, phone numbers and occupation. It has been left exposed online for over four months, but it's not clear who the owner is -- or how to address the security risk it poses.

Amazon is slashing the price of a Prime subscription for US customers in receipt of government assistance. Customers with an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card are eligible to have their monthly subscription discounted from $10.99 to $5.99.

There are no restrictions on the cheaper Prime subscriptions, and it includes Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading, Prime Photos and free shipping just like its full-price counterpart, but Amazon points out that EBT cannot be used to pay for membership.

Google has developed an educational program with the aim of helping children make better use of the internet. It's a drive to "help kids learn how to be smart, positive and kind online, just like we teach them to be offline" and it's called Be Internet Awesome.

Pavni Diwanji, vice president of Engineering For Kids and Families at Google says: "We need to provide guidance as they learn to make their own smart decisions online." The program has been developed with a number of key online safety experts and includes an educational game called Interland.

Google has started to push out updates to the latest version of its web browser -- Chrome 59 for Windows, Linux and macOS. The update includes a number of important security fixes, but also sees the arrival of Google's Material Design on the desktop.

The Material look is one that will be very familiar to Android users, as well as anyone who uses Google's various online services. But Google is not quite ready to give its desktop browser a full makeover yet.

Following the attacks on London over the weekend, prime minister Theresa May made calls for further regulation of the internet -- despite having already ushered in the snooper's charter, one of the most invasive pieces of online legislation in the world.

Speaking about the attacks, May said: "We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide." Google, Facebook and Twitter have all lashed out, saying they already do a great deal to combat terrorist and extremist content on their networks.