Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Kaspersky has had something of a tough time of it over the last year, first being hit by a ban on its software being used by the US government, and then a ban on advertising on Twitter. The Russian company sued the Trump administration over the software ban, and a judge has now dismissed the suits.

Kaspersky Lab had been looking to overturn the governmental ban, saying "we've done nothing wrong" in response to claims that the company is linked to the Russian government. The firm says it plans to appeal against the latest ruling.

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Imgur has long been home to a universe of GIFs but -- after many years of animated silence -- this is changing thanks to the arrival of video support.

This is a major change of direction for the company; something it recognizes and refers to as "a monumental shift for our future". At the moment, the uploading of videos is only available to iOS users, but there are plans to roll it out to other platforms as well. All platforms can currently view -- and hear -- videos.

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Plex has come a very long way over the years, but it has lacked support -- for some inexplicable reason -- for podcasts. Today this changes with the arrival of not just a podcast feature, but also a new look, highly customizable mobile app for iOS and Android users.

For the time being, podcast support is in beta, but it is a feature that is available to all users -- there's no need to be a paid-up Plex Pass subscriber. Things are a little basic for now, but they're going to improve. Let's take a look and see what this latest update has to offer.

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Bugs found in software are often a little quirky, but the latest discovery of a bug in the Google Android app is very peculiar indeed. Use the app to perform certain searches, or make a typo when entering a URL, and you may well find that you see a list of your text messages rather than the page you were expecting.

At the moment it seems that the bug only affects Android users, with the iOS version of the Google app appearing to be functioning normally. If you get strange results if you try to visit the1975..com or search for "zela viagens", you might want to change your app permissions as a precaution.

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With the launch of iOS 11.4 yesterday, Apple also unleashed AirPlay 2. Bringing support for stereo pairing and multi-room audio, this was the update HomePod users had been waiting for.

But a HomePod is not the only way to take advantage of AirPlay 2; there are lots of other speakers that support the standard. Apple has now published a list of all of the AirPlay 2 speakers and receivers that are currently available, or will be very soon.

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Today sees the release of iOS 11.4 and with it Apple is adding AirPlay 2. This brings some important changes to HomePod, including the stereo pairing option that was missing at launch.

AirPlay 2 also adds multi-room audio to HomePod, bringing Apple's smartspeaker in line with Amazon Echo and Google Home. Other new features of iOS 11.4 include the ability to access iMessages via iCloud on any Apple device.

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Bluehole's PUBG -- the company behind PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds -- is taking Epic Games to court, alleging that Fortnite's Battle Royale mode violates the copyright of its own game.

Both Fortnight and PUBG have proved to be incredibly popular games, and Bluehole's PUBG has made no secret of the fact that it believes Epic has drawn a little too much inspiration from its own game.

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Ghostery is a company rooted in privacy, so that the firm should accidentally reveal users' email addresses would come as something of a surprise. Over the weekend, however, this is exactly what happened.

The company -- as many others have been doing recently -- emailed its users with details of its updated privacy policy that complies with GDPR. Unfortunately, the message exposed the email addresses of hundreds of customers as the company failed to make use of the BCC field.

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Over the weekend, the Bank of Montreal and Simplii Financial both issued statements indicating that they had fallen victim to hackers. In the case of Simplii Financial, around 40,000 customer accounts have been affected, but numbers have not been revealed for the Bank of Montreal.

Both banks' statements indicate that they were contacted by "fraudsters" on Sunday, May 27, but it is not clear whether the two incidents relate to the same group.

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There was concern recently when a couple of Alexa users found that the smart assistant built into their Amazon Echo had not only recorded a conversation they had been having, but had sent it to an acquaintance.

Since this story broke, it is entirely understandable that other people who have Alexa listening in the background are worried that something similar could happen to them. If you want to check whether Alexa has been secretly/inadvertently recording you (delete according to your prejudices), we can show you how. If you find any recordings you want to ensure no one else hears, you can also delete them.

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With so much choice in the field of streaming music, any package on the market has to offer something special to stand out from the competition. Looking to better compete with the likes of Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora has launched a new Premium Family package.

The new package offers unlimited access to all of Pandora's premium features for up to six people. The price is just $15 per month, but there's a 60-day free trial available so you can try it out for size first.

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Having slapped Chinese company ZTE with a denial order which significantly hampered its US operations, President Trump has said that the firm will pay a $1.3 billion fine and change its board and management in order to continue to operate within North America.

ZTE had complained that the denial order was unacceptable, and Trump has more recently indicated a desire to get the company "back into business". Now it seems that the president has come up with a deal that involves the Chinese telecoms firm not only making security guarantees, but also buying components from US companies.

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Apple has announced that it is to expand the scope of its twice-yearly transparency report. Starting with one of its next report -- the one which will cover the period July 1 to December 31, 2018 -- the company will share details of government app takedown requests.

The announcement was tucked away in the latest transparency report, in which Apple shares details of "Government and Private Party Requests for Customer Information". The company says that it takes the protection of user data very seriously, and this addition to the report sees Apple demonstrating this by providing even more information.

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It's just a couple of days since Microsoft temporarily disabled Windows 10 April 2018 Update on PCs running Avast antivirus. Just as with certain SSDs, a compatibility issue was making the update problematic.

But now Avast says it has identified the issue and is working to push out an update to people that will avoid the problem. The company also has instructions for people whose computers have been left sitting in a blue screen state.

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There have long been accusations that digital assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri are constantly listening in on and recording conversations, and recent events in Portland, Oregon are simply going to serve as extra fuel for conspiracy theorists.

A couple were disturbed to find that Alexa not only recorded a private conversation they had in their house, but then sent it on to a colleague as a message. Danielle says she and her husband felt it was "a total privacy invasion", and it is unlikely that Amazon's explanation will do anything to encourage her to use her Echo every again.

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