Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Unless you've been living under a rock, the disastrous launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 cannot have escaped you. We've already seen the company pushing out updates in some countries to prevent the phones from fully charging in the hope that this will convince owners to take advantage of the exchange or refund program.

Now reports suggest that a new OTA update could be on its way to handset owners in the US. Rather than just limiting charging, the word is that the update will prevent charging completely, rendering the phone useless.

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Six months after news of the acquisition was released, Microsoft's takeover of the professional social network has closed.

The aim had been to complete the deal by the end of the year, and the two companies managed to hit the deadline after the European Commission gave it the go-ahead. The $26.2 billion acquisition is being billed as helping to accelerate the mission to "connect the world's professionals".

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We're nearing the end of the year, so expect to be inundated with retrospectives for 2016 -- Facebook has just released its look back at the year that's (nearly) gone by.

The social network's review of 2016 comprises two top 10 lists: the most popular trending topics of the year, and the most popular Live videos of the year. It should come as no surprise that the trending topics list is dominated by major political events such as the US election and Brexit, as well as celebrity deaths.

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Payments through Facebook Messenger have been available in the US for some time now, and they're about to make their way to Europe.

Facebook has just been granted a license for 'payment services' and 'e-money issuance' with the Central Bank of Ireland. As a member of the European Union, holding a license in Ireland means that Facebook will be able to offer its payment services in all of the EU member states.

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Advertisements for junk food that are aimed at children are to be banned from non-broadcast media, including online. The Committee on Advertising Practice (CAP) announced the measures, which will affect advertisers in the UK, as the government tries to tackle childhood obesity.

The ban means that foods high in fat, salt and sugar cannot be advertised on social media, YouTube channels and gaming websites in ways that will specifically appeal to children.

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Faced with competition from the likes of Microsoft Teams, Slack is strengthening its partnership with Google to bring greater cloud integration to users.

The beloved communication tool is teaming up with Google Cloud to improve Google Drive support, but there's also support for bots in the form of Drive Bot. Security and sharing is also in line for improvements, and the recently-announced Team Drives from Google will also be supported.

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The music industry has come through all sorts of changes over the last few decades, but it was the birth of the MP3 that many warned was the death knell for record shops.

In recent years however, vinyl has made a major comeback, and in the UK digital sales have just been overtaken by sales of the groovy black platters. For purists, enthusiasts, and fans of certain musical genres, vinyl has never gone out of fashion, but in the run-up to Christmas it is proving more popular than ever.

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Big companies like to be seen to be doing their bit, particularly when it comes to the environment, and tech companies are no different. Google -- being one of the biggest companies in the world -- has huge energy requirements, and it's looking to help address the problem of climate change.

The company has already done a lot to increase the energy efficiency of its data centers, but in 2017 it is going further. It says that it will be fully powered by renewable energy from next year, and that includes both data centers and offices.

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The announcement that Netflix now allows viewers to download videos for offline viewing caused understandable excitement among subscribers. Of course, the key concern -- particularly with mobile devices -- is storage space. But thanks to a tweaked codec, Netflix has your back.

If you were worried that you might not be able to fit many episodes of your favorite shows on your phone or tablet, fear not. For Android users, Netflix opted to use the super-efficient VP9 codec, but as this isn’t supported by Apple, it had to think outside the box a little and ended up plumping for a custom H.264/AVC High codec for iOS users. The space savings are impressive.

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Over the last few days there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the discovery that if you type "are Jews" into Google, one of the suggested searches is "are Jews evil". The same is true for the search "are women" and "are Muslims" ("bad" being the suggestion in the third instance). Or at least it was the case.

Following cries of anti-Semitism, the search giant folded like a moist tissue and remove the "offensive" suggestion. Clearly Google is able to do -- by and large -- whatever the hell it wants... but that doesn’t make it right. And the removal of the "are Jews evil" suggestion is not only wrong, but also worrying and dangerous. If you disagree you can let off steam in the comments and cast a vote in the poll, but hear me out first.

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Wine is well known to Linux and Mac users for opening up the possibility of running Windows software on their preferred operating system. The self-referentially-named software (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is due for a new release in the next few weeks, but the hoped-for Windows-on-Android support is not yet there.

That said, it is in the pipeline. Wine developers are working on integrating the existing CrossOver Android software into the open source Windows API. This will allow for Windows software to run in Android, but it won't make it into the up-coming Wine 2.0, and there are limitations.

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We've known (or at least believed) for some time that Apple has been working on some form of automated vehicle, but the company has remained tight-lipped about what it is up to. Now, however, a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives the strongest official hint that Apple is working on something.

The letter -- written by Apple's Director of Product Integrity, Steve Kenner, back in November -- has just come to light, in it Apple praises NHTSA's policies on automated vehicles, and stresses the importance of machine learning, data sharing, and user privacy in ensuring the development and safety of such technologies.

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It is a couple of weeks since Apple announced a battery replacement program for iPhone 6s handsets suffering with random shutdown issue. At the time, the company gave nothing away about what the root cause of the problem was, but now it has opened up.

In a posting on its Chinese website, Apple confirms that the shutdown problems were indeed related to a battery problem. Specifically, the company explains that it was "a battery component that was exposed to controlled ambient air longer than it should have been".

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Back in October there was a mixture of great excitement and huge worry that the controversial Pirate Party could end up winning the general election in Iceland. That didn't happen, but with no clear winner there was an attempt to create a five-way coalition that ultimately failed after weeks of talks, paving the way for the radical party made up of poets, hackers and online freedom activists.

The Pirate Party -- which says it would offer exile to Edward Snowden and also embrace Bitcoin -- could still end up in power after being invited to form part of the government by Iceland's president. But even if the controversial, anti-establishment party does end up wielding power, it's unlikely that its more radical policies would come to fruition.

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Mark Zuckerberg is well known for his philanthropic ventures -- he hardly keeps them quiet, after all. Now Facebook as a whole is getting in on the action, offering up a $20 million contribution to help improve the communities around Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.

It could be argued that the financial offering is not entirely selfless, but this will probably be of little concern to those who stand to benefit from a number of projects that will focus on building affordable housing, STEM training in the area, and legal support for those in need.

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