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Facebook's plans to launch its very own cryptocurrency was met with heavy opposition last week, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Libra proposal to Congress was hijacked into a hearing of the company's past mishandling. To put it briefly, the social media company's involvement in the Cambridge Analytica and election controversies had broken its trust with authorities. Without a clear structure for regulation, there are concerns that Zuckerberg's new Libra project could undermine the national dollar, as well as contain loopholes for criminals to exploit.

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A future of surveillance and cameras draws even closer to our reality. This month, the world’s second-largest country, India, joined the list of governments that have announced plans to build a country-wide facial recognition system. This follows China’s commitment to similarly build a facial recognition database that can identify any citizen within seconds.

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Almost a year out from launch, the odyssey of Fallout 76 keeps getting stranger. Today, Bethesda announced that it's implementing a new monthly subscription service for Fallout 76 called Fallout 1st. Subscriptions in a pay-to-play title generally aren't a great idea to start with, but given all of the blowback Fallout 76 has received over the past year, this was a particularly harebrained move on the part of Bethesda.

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Google will update its face unlock system so that the Pixel 4's security can't be bypassed even when owners are asleep, but don't expect that to happen any time soon. The new Android smartphone does away with the fingerprint sensor of its predecessors in favor of a new, ultra-fast face unlock, but the security tech hasn't quite lived up to expectations.

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Over the weekend, Samsung sent a relatively small number of its customers an email that they probably didn't want to read on a weekend or on a weekday. The company was put its Linux on DeX beta program to rest and not because it was graduating to a stable release. On the contrary, Samsung was ending the program completely. It may have had a small number of users but LoD, as it was known, was well-loved by those because of what it enabled. Fortunately, there are other ways to carry on that promise in a hopefully more sustainable and more future-proof way.

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Here are two great handheld gaming consoles. One is currently taking the gaming world by storm; The other has faded out of production with a whimper. They are the Nintendo Switch and the retired PlayStation Vita, consoles so alike but with sales figures that couldn’t be more different.

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This is the way to do it. Microsoft has been hard at work this year, unveiling a long list of new products, including a pair of folding devices: the Surface Neo and Surface Duo. Both these devices have two screens connected with a hinge that can fold a full 360 degrees. The Surface Neo is a folding tablet that Microsoft envisions as its evolution of a laptop. It has two screens and runs Windows 10X, a new version optimised for folding screens. And the smaller one, the Surface Duo, has two 5.6-inch screens bolted together and runs on Android.

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It seems like every other tech brand is developing its own “true” wireless earbuds. Since the success of Apple AirPods, companies have quickly jumped on board the bandwagon, offering their renditions of these tiny audio devices, housed in a small charging case.

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Google may not have won the living room yet, but it isn't ready to call time on Android TV. As the Google Assistant continues its spread through smart speakers and, more recently, smart displays, it's the biggest screen that the search giant has set its sights on. Now, fresh research shows just how important the TV is - and where connected TVs could leverage Google's strengths in the smart home.

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This year might end up being unkind to Apple's software if the past few days continue their trend. iOS 13, one of Apple's most monumental releases for its mobile platform, has had three emergency releases in just a week to quickly patch up critical security bugs. macOS Catalina, an equally big release, was pushed back later than initially promised. The latest macOS update has finally rolled out and, fortunately, it isn't as bug-ridden as iOS 13. Unfortunately, it has its own share of controversy that is leaving some users and developers out in the cold.

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Smart glasses have been on adverts, movies and the news for decades now. From Google Glass way back in 2012, to Peter Parker’s EDITH spectacles, we’ve seen why there’s certainly a place for tech like this in our world. These technologically enhanced spectacles come with all sorts of tricks up its sleeve, from inbuilt sensors and cameras. Most also have Augmented Reality or Heads-Up Displays (HUD), like what you’ll find in Iron Man’s helmet - Despite this awareness, smart glasses have never really kicked off, even after being in mass production for many years now.

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Rising tech companies like Uber and WeWork have been on the news lately, but not for reasons they would have anticipated at the start of the year. What was meant to be a record-setting year for tech companies listed on the stock market has led to major disappointment, with many of these big names losing up to half of their stock value in a matter of months.

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