Tech This Week: Users' Security and Safety Are Apps' Top Priorities, Cheating Gamers Busted and Banned

Am I the only one who felt that January 2021 was 2020's 13th month? ? I guess I'm not! 

Fortunately, it ended! And so far February seems to be more promising.
The shortest month of the year kicked in packing a punch of good news and new exciting features to look forward to. For example, Apple finally figured out a new way to unlock those iPhones while keeping your new accessories on, AKA masks. But of course, since Apple doesn't believe in unconditional love, everything it offers comes with a price/condition.

In a nutshell, it seems the tech industry's main focus was on their users' safety and security, or at least that's what they want us to believe ?.

Without any further ado, let's spill the tea and share the latest tech stories of the week:

Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp has added a new biometric authentication—including facial recognition and fingerprint —  feature to its web and desktop versions alongside the already existing QR code authentication. The company tweeted:

"WhatsApp does not see your face or fingerprint data," the announcement reads. Apparently, the popular messaging app wants to please its 2 billion users by making them feel more secure as many of them threatened to leave the platform after a recent announcement of changing the privacy policies.

Face ID recognition was a genius idea until we, unfortunately, had to wear masks. But because safe is the new sexy, Apple announced adding support for unlocking iPhones while keeping the mask on but this cannot be achieved unless the user has an Apple Watch. 

This new feature is supposed to make living the new normal easier and safer as users won’t have to pull down their masks to unlock their phones.

Twitter has quietly blocked some high profile users’ accounts in India to comply with a governmental legal demand.

Among the blocked/restricted profiles were people who are linked to the recent ongoing farmers’ protests and politicians. Still, Twitter issued no statement on the incident. 

However, it seems that Twitter changed its mind later on, and decided to unblock these accounts.

In January, Telegram has seen a tremendous uptake in new users as WhatsApp triggered a debate with its new privacy policy. The Russian popular messaging app with 25 million users decided to take advantage of that by releasing this feature that makes the exodus from WhatsApp more convenient, and much easier.

In the announcement, the company mentioned that users can also import chats from Line and TikTok.

Celebrating the Data Privacy Day, Snapchat launched a program dedicated to raising public awareness of data security.

^{Snapchat/Axios}

 Snapchat’s discovery section for this month will contain nothing but security tips from experts.

Facebook’s “Oversight Board” is asking for public feedback regarding suspending the US former president Donald Trump account earlier this year.

Famous Videogame maker, Activision announced that it has banned the accounts of 60,000 'Call of Duty: Warzone' gamers who have been using a cheating software. 

The popular first-person shooter video game franchise cracked down on cheating after CoD streamer Vikkstar123 said he’s quitting the game as he tweeted the reasons:

Since its trailer was released back in December, the latest version of Resident Evil game, dubbed as 'the village', the fans of the survival horror game have gone wild for the tall sexy vampire villain lady questioning who is she! Capcom finally decided to answer some of the questions with this tweet:

Apex Legends to be on Nintendo Switch Starting March 9th

'FIFA 21' to come to Google Stadia on March 17th

Feb. 23-25: Mobile World Congress in Shanghai