A new Apple text "bomb" forces iPhones that receive it to crash. The innocent-looking message – which is made up of the Italian flag emoji and a Sindhi character – overloads the device and forces it to shut down. It works on Macs, Apple Watches and iPads as well as iPhones and there is hardly anything that can be done to stop the damage. The bug seems to exploit a problem in the message notifications on the phone, which means that it is unable to display the notification about the new message and crashes the app. While the problem will sometimes simply force the Messages app to crash and re-open, some users have reported that the problem can also force the iPhone itself to shut down.

Nintendo has confirmed a huge hack that allowed access to 160,000 people's accounts on its online services. Rumours of a hack had spread in recent days as players reported suspicious logins and unauthorised purchases being made from their accounts. Now the company has confirmed those accounts were hacked, in a post on its Japanese website. It said that hackers had been able to access online logins that had been made available elsewhere on the internet. It gave no details of how the details were stolen or how widely they had been used.

Zoom calls are being interrupted by attackers who broadcast child abuse imagery, users say. The reports are just the latest example of the phenomenon of "Zoombombing", where strangers break into calls and show often distressing images and videos. The National Crime Agency (NCA) has now confirmed that it is investigating the reports and following up with other instances of such attacks. The BBC reported that several users of video calling app Zoom had recently experienced incidents where their meeting had been interrupted by abuse footage. It said one of the meetings in question had been publicised on social media - something a number of online safety groups and Zoom itself urge users not to do.

Facebook has stopped advertisers from targeting people interested in "pseudoscience" as it attempts to crack down on coronavirus misinformation. Until this week, companies were able to use the interest to target particular audiences. But the company has now paused the availability of that and some other categories as it deals with false stories around the pandemic. Other topics including "conspiracy theory" appear to have disappeared from the list, and a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that other categories were being hidden as it evaluates the different audience categories. The removal came after a report that demonstrated it was possible to pick people interested in "pseudoscience" for targeting with particular posts, presumably allowing them to be targeted with false or misleading information.

WhatsApp says that highly-forwarded messages have plunged since it introduced new rules. Earlier this month, in a major change, the company announced that it would prohibit people sending on "highly-forwarded" messages in an attempt to stop the spread of viral posts. The new rules mean that if a message has already been sent on in bulk, users have to go to extra effort to forward it on more. If a message has been forwarded enough to get a "highly-forwarded" tag, users can only send it on to one person at a time, rather than five. Now the company says those new rules have worked, and the number of such messages being forwarded on has dropped 70 per cent since the new features were introduced.

Online piracy has surged in popularity since countries around the world began enforcing lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, new figures have revealed. Traffic to illegal streaming and download sites rose by nearly 60 per cent between February and March, as people sought ways to watch films and TV shows for free. Piracy tracking firm Muso registered more than 300 million visits to piracy sites in the UK, and more than 1 billion in the US. "Piracy or unlicensed consumption trends are closely linked to paid-for or licensed content," said Muso CEO Andy Chatterley. "Just as Netflix has seen large subscriber gains, we have seen a significant spike in visits to film piracy sites."

Apple and Google have released technical details of the tools they plan to release to let people track their exposure to coronavirus through their phones. The two companies hope to release the tools next month, allowing phones to connect to each other and discover when their owners may have been exposed to the virus. The new updates look to address problems with criticism around privacy protections and the level of detail that could be found in any data gathered by phones. While governments and official bodies in countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic are quickly developing their own apps, they will have to rely on Apple and Google tools in the operating system to ensure that the apps are fully effective. Without the support of the companies and their operating system, the apps could be hampered by limits such as a requirement that phone screens stay on if an app is ctive.

A popular app dubbed the "Netflix of piracy" has launched a child-friendly mode that filters out inappropriate content, as online pirates seek to profit from a recent surge in streaming. The new feature in Popcorn Time appears to be borrowed from similar parental controls on legitimate streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Much of the content hosted on Popcorn Time is also taken from its legal counterparts, offering users a free but illegal way to watch streams and torrents of films and TV shows. "The applications provide a free alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix," the app states on its website. "Popcorn Time is constantly searching all over the web for the best torrents from the most important sites... If the movie or TV show is out there, Popcorn Time will find the best version possible and start streaming it right away."

Virgin Media says it has fixed an issue that took people's internet and TV service offline for hours. The issue meant that connectivity repeatedly dropped out over Monday evening and into the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving customers without their usual service. Now it says the problem has been fixed – and noted that it was not the result of increased usage owing to the coronavirus lockdown. "An intermittent broadband issue that started yesterday evening was fixed in the early hours of this morning," a spokesperson said. "This was not caused by increased usage or a lack of capacity. We know how frustrating this was for customers and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Google is bringing back its most popular Doodle games to keep people entertained through coronavirus lockdowns. The new Doodles will highlight some of the best games to grace its homepage from recent years. The feature began on 27 April and will run for two weeks, with new games arriving each day. It has already highlighted its "Coding for Carrots" game, which first arrived in 2017 and was launched to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Logo, the programming language created for children. It allows children to learn the basics of coding using the simple game, which sees them control a rabbit as it goes around hunting for food.