Updated: 14:50 Fri, May 02 2025. (Last checked: 55 mins ago) |
|---|
20% discount offer on Windows 365 expires around same time as Windows 10 support - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 13:47:14 GMT)Can't run Windows 11? Microsoft suggests renting it insteadMicrosoft has announced a price cut for Windows 365 alongside a not-so-subtle suggestion that Windows 10 users might consider taking advantage of the offer to keep security updates flowing.… |
Three Brits charged over 'active shooter threats' swattings in US, Canada - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 13:06:12 GMT)UK starts prosecution days after FBI vowed to clamp down on the crimeThree young Brits are accused of stateside swatting offences and will appear in a UK court today to face their charges after a joint investigation by the FBI and Merseyside cops.… |
TikTok fined €530M after EU user data ends up on servers in China - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 12:15:12 GMT)Ireland privacy watchdog says transfers violated GDPR, as Chinese app confirms €1B datacenter in FinlandIreland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has confirmed a fine of €530 million ($600 million) against social media biz TikTok for transferring European user data to China.… |
UK's smaller broadband operators face tough road ahead, consolidation possible - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 11:27:13 GMT)Report into alternative networks says competition with BT and co making life harder than everAlternative network providers (altnets) are facing tough competition from the big players in the UK broadband market, with consolidation likely in the face of slowing growth in fiber internet uptake.… |
British govt agents step in as Harrods becomes third mega retailer under cyberattack - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 10:25:12 GMT)Experts suggest the obvious: There is an ongoing coordinated attack on UK retail sectorHarrods, a globally recognized purveyor of all things luxury, is the third major UK retailer to confirm an attempted cyberattack on its systems in under two weeks.… |
The Telegraph jumps the gun on World War III - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 09:28:12 GMT)Trigger-happy Taiwan headline sparks instant apocalypse vibesWorld War III might have begun this week, according to British broadsheet The Telegraph.… |
Open source AI hiring bots favor men, leave women hanging by the phone - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 08:28:10 GMT)Easy fix: Telling LLMs to cosplay Lenin makes 'em more gender blindOpen source AI models are more likely to recommend men than women for jobs, particularly the high-paying ones, a new study has found.… |
Techie solved supposed software problem by waving his arms in the air - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 07:29:12 GMT)Used his loaf and found sweet solution for bakery borkageOn Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column that each Friday serves up your stories of biting into half-baked tech support problems.… |
Trio arrested in £3M UK bribery probe over Microsoft datacenter build in Netherlands - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 06:31:07 GMT)Blu-3 accused of paying off former Mace Group associatesUK authorities on Wednesday arrested three individuals in connection with a multi-million-pound bribery probe tied to the construction of a Microsoft datacenter in the Netherlands.… |
China turns on ‘minors mode’ that ensures kids only see wholesome socialist content online - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 04:36:53 GMT)Content players and smartphone makers made it happen six months after regulator floated the ideaChina has flicked the switch on ‘Minor’s mode’, a subset of its internet in which under-18s will only see wholesome content.… |
Siri? Will tariffs hurt Apple? Tim Cook says brace for a $900 million whack, for starters - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 01:31:12 GMT)iGiant shifted production to India and Vietnam but has no idea if that will help after tariff pause endsApple believes the USA’s new tariffs policy will impact its finances by at least $900 million in its next quarter, has re-organized its supply chains to protect itself from whatever comes next, but can’t predict the impact on its business.… |
Liz Warren, Trump admin agree on something: Army should have right to repair - (pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 00:45:11 GMT)As military memo makes it official policyThe US Army intends to secure the right to repair its own equipment, a right that hasn't always been available under past procurement contracts - and one of the very few things that Democrats in Congress and the Trump administration broadly agree upon.… |
Dems look to close the barn door after top DOGE dog has bolted - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 22:33:00 GMT)House Oversight probes missing Musk disclosures, background checks, data mess at NLRBElon Musk is backing away from his Trump-blessed government gig, but now House Democrats want to see the permission slip that got him in the door.… |
Zuck ghosts metaverse as Meta chases AI goldrush - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 20:41:07 GMT)Seriously, HTF does Reality Labs bleed SIXTY BILLION US DOLLARS in FIVE years?Meta's Reality Labs division continued its losing streak with another $4.2 billion down the drain in the first quarter of 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's stated priorities on Wednesday's earnings call suggest his metaverse dream is well and truly over.… |
Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 20:03:14 GMT)Why optimize code when you can just start running sooner?Microsoft later this month plans to begin loading Word shortly after folks' computers begin booting up – to "optimize performance" or at least improve their perception of it.… |
Healthcare group Ascension discloses second cyberattack on patients' data - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 19:22:07 GMT)This time criminals targeted partner’s third-party softwareIt's more bad news from Ascension Health which is informing some of its patients, potentially for the second time in the space of a year, that their medical data was compromised during a major cyberattack.… |
AI models routinely lie when honesty conflicts with their goals - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 18:27:14 GMT)Keep plugging those LLMs into your apps, folks. This neural network told me it'll be fineSome smart cookies have found that when AI models face a conflict between telling the truth or accomplishing a specific goal, they lie more than 50 percent of the time.… |
Red, white, and blew it? Trump tariffs may cost America the AI race - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 17:27:06 GMT)Whole thing gonna be a real PITA for tech sector, says ABI ResearchWorld War Fee US tariffs - should they go ahead - are likely to result in price bumps for essential components and construction materials in the datacenter industry, and may even cost America its lead in the AI race as investments are paused or canceled.… |
How Amazon red-teamed Alexa+ to keep your kids from ordering 50 pizzas - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 17:09:08 GMT)Will the personal assistant shop for groceries? Or get hijacked by a teen?RSAC If Amazon's Alexa+ works as intended, it could show how an AI assistant helps with everyday tasks like making dinner reservations or arranging an oven repair. Or things could go terribly wrong: it might turn on the oven and turn dinner plans into a house fire.… |
Redis 'returns' to open source with AGPL license - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 16:15:12 GMT)New plan may remain too restrictive for some developersRedis, the company behind the popular value-key database of the same name, has returned its main system to an open source license, although the move failed to satisfy some critics.… |
X marks the drop for European users - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 15:04:10 GMT)Xitter sheds EU users. Musk's Grok suggests 'misinformation, hate speech, and a perceived decline in content moderation' to blameEverything is super, over at X (the social media service formerly known as Twitter), which has shed around 10 percent of its European users in the past six months.… |
AI infrastructure investment may be $8T shot in the dark - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 14:00:10 GMT)McKinsey warns datacenter binge could overshoot actual demand as execs scramble to keep up with hypeA report from consultancy McKinsey & Company highlights the widespread unease over AI, pointing to the bewildering sums being invested into infrastructure to support it, while warning that forecasts of future demand are based on little more than guesswork.… |
Chris Krebs loses Global Entry membership amid Trump feud - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 13:15:12 GMT)President's campaign continues against man he claims covered up evidence of electoral fraud in 2020Chris Krebs, former CISA director and current political punching bag for the US President, says his Global Entry membership was revoked.… |
NASA probes propulsion problem in Psyche's thrusters - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 12:30:13 GMT)Mission to a metal asteroid lacks xenon pressureNASA is looking into propulsion problems experienced by a probe on its way to orbit the asteroid Psyche.… |
Google details plans for 1 MW IT racks exploiting electric vehicle supply chain - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 11:45:12 GMT)Switching voltage allows search giant to switch up power delivery systemGoogle is planning for datacenter racks supporting 1 MW of IT hardware loads, plus the cooling infrastructure to cope, as AI processing continues to grow ever more energy intensive.… |
Linux in Excel? Sure, why not ruin both - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 11:02:10 GMT)The spreadsheet from HellFrom the department of "but… why?" comes news of Linux running in Microsoft Excel, although all might not be as it seems.… |
Data watchdog will leave British Library alone – further probes 'not worth our time' - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 10:15:14 GMT)No MFA? No problem – as long as you show you’ve learned your lessonThe UK's data protection overlord is not going to pursue any further investigation into the British Library's 2023 ransomware attack.… |
AI software development: Productivity revolution or fraught with risk? - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 09:27:07 GMT)We look at the state of AI software development – it's not going away, but risks aboundAnalysis AI in software development has evolved rapidly since GitHub Copilot caught the world's attention with its June 2021 preview – and shows no sign of slowing down.… |
HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 08:30:11 GMT)Watchdog says transformation effort added costs instead of savings for most businessesThe UK tax authority's push to digitize services has backfired, saddling taxpayers with hundreds of millions in extra costs, according to a report by Parliament's public spending watchdog.… |
Microsoft tries to kill the 'pausing datacenter builds must be bad news for AI' trope - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 07:33:14 GMT)Sees economic strife as chance to sell even more stuff than its $70bn Q3 haulMicrosoft’s capital expenditure was slightly lower than forecast, in part due to “normal variability from the timing of delivery of data center leases” that the company was at pains to argue are not in any way bad news.… |
KDE 3 lives to fight another day as Trinity Desktop 14.1.4 hits the shelves - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 06:27:07 GMT)Good news, everyone: 15 years on, TDE still pushes pixelsThe long-running fork of KDE 3 has dropped its latest update: Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.4, now with better distro support and a fresh coat of code. Not bad for a project still chugging along 15 years after KDE itself moved on.… |
Samsung customers buying now to avoid future tariffs – and may slow purchases once they arrive - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 04:28:08 GMT)Datacenter build slowdown hurt storage sales but Korean giant sees bit barn reboundSamsung yesterday posted results a little better than it forecast, and attributed some of its record revenue and strong profit to customers rushing to buy kit before the USA raises tariffs on imports.… |
Cook'd: Judge says Apple lied to court in Epic case, asks Feds to mull criminal charges - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 01:58:37 GMT)CEO, senior execs ‘at every turn chose the most anti-competitive option’A federal judge has said Apple execs deliberately ignored an injunction and told lies in court – and so has asked US prosecutors to consider criminal charges against the iPhone titan.… |
Anthropic calls for tougher GPU export controls as Nvidia's CEO implores Trump to spread the AI love - (pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2025 00:50:10 GMT)This couldn't possibly be about Chinese model builders taking some of the shine off US rivals, could it?+Comment Anthropic has urged the White House to further tighten so-called AI diffusion rules – which are already set to hurt Nvidia and co by limiting or blocking the sale of higher-end GPUs and accelerators outside the US and a select few allies from mid-May.… |
Ex-NSA cyber-boss: AI will soon be a great exploit coder - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 23:31:58 GMT)For now it's a potential bug-finder and friend to defendersRSAC Former NSA cyber-boss Rob Joyce thinks today's artificial intelligence is dangerously close to becoming a top-tier vulnerability exploit developer.… |
Musk’s DOGE probed by top watchdog after poking around Uncle Sam's systems - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 21:14:11 GMT)Oligarch's crew makes audits harder, US comptroller general tells CongressThe US Government Accountability Office has confirmed it launched audits of Elon Musk's Trump-blessed cost-trimming DOGE unit amid concerns that its access to agency systems may be complicating oversight and involving sensitive data.… |
Brewhaha: Turns out machines can't replace people, Starbucks finds - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:15:55 GMT)Caffeine addicts evidently not thrilled to see cafes become walk-in vending machinesStarbucks, smarting from disappointing second-quarter earnings, says that trying to replace staff with machines was a mistake.… |
Ex-CISA chief decries cuts as Trump demands loyalty above all else - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:58:14 GMT)Cybersecurity is national security, says Jen EasterlyRSAC America's top cyber-defense agency is "being undermined" by personnel and budget cuts under the Trump administration, some of which are being driven by an expectation of perfect loyalty to the President rather than the nation.… |
Maryland man pleads guilty to outsourcing US govt work to North Korean dev in China - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:03:10 GMT)Feds say $970K scheme defrauded 13+ companiesA Maryland man has pleaded guilty to fraud after landing a job with a contractor working on US government software, and then outsourcing the work to a self-described North Korean developer in China.… |
Your graphics card's so fat, it's got its own gravity alert - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:02:05 GMT)Asus implements droop detector for PCIe slots as GPUs now so heavy they risk toppling outGraphics cards are now getting so bulky and heavy that device maker Asus has decided customers need a way to detect any sagging or movement of the GPU in its PCIe slot.… |
Thunderbird joins Firefox on the monthly treadmill - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 15:58:13 GMT)We'll see if messaging client can keep up with sibling browserMozilla has lobbed out Firefox 138, and subsidiary MZLA's Thunderbird 138 isn't far behind. The venerable messaging client is picking up the pace and finally syncing its stride with the browser that spawned it.… |
FBI steps in amid rash of politically charged swattings - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 15:10:12 GMT)No specific law against it yet, but that's set to changeA spate of high-profile swatting incidents in the US recently forced the FBI into action with its latest awareness campaign about the occasionally deadly practice.… |
'I guess NASA doesn't need or care about my work anymore' - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 14:04:12 GMT)Former Space Shuttle boss's blog booted from Trump-era agency websiteNASA has excised former Space Shuttle manager Wayne Hale's blog from its website in a reminder that nothing is forever.… |
Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe's tech independence - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 13:31:58 GMT)Brad Smith commits org to facing off with US govt in court to protect themMicrosoft is responding to mounting "geopolitical and trade volatility" between the US administration and governments in Europe by pledging privacy safeguards for customers worried about using American hyperscalers, and vowing to fight the US government in court to protect Euro customers' data if needed.… |
BTW Windows Subsystem for Linux officially uses Arch now - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:14:11 GMT)The tryhard's favorite distro wins an approved home in Microsoft's OSThere have been unofficial versions for years, but Arch Linux is now officially on the menu for people using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).… |
OpenAI pulls plug on ChatGPT smarmbot that praised user for ditching psychiatric meds - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 11:28:09 GMT)Sycophantic update to GPT-4o rolled back after AI gets over-enthusiastic with the 'glaze'OpenAI has hurriedly rolled back the latest ChatGPT model days after it was released because it was deemed to be too "sycophant-y and annoying."… |
Alt-browser Flow breezes through web tests, but still far from a daily driver - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 10:28:11 GMT)Snappy surfer eyes Apple's EU engine requirementsAlternative browser Flow now passes 90 percent of web-platform-tests.… |
Ghost in the shell script: Boffins reckon they can catch bugs before programs run - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 09:27:06 GMT)Go ahead, please do Bash static analysisShell scripting may finally get a proper bug-checker. A group of academics has proposed static analysis techniques aimed at improving the correctness and reliability of Unix shell programs.… |
Does UK's Online Safety Act cover misinformation? Well, that depends - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:33:10 GMT)Minister, platform providers disagree on whether law would have helped avoid last summer's riotsMPs heard a range of interpretations of UK law when it comes to the spread of misinformation online, a critical factor in the riots across England and Northern Ireland sparked by inaccurate social media posts about the fatal stabbings at a children's dance class on 29 July last year.… |
AWS creates EC2 instance types tailored for demanding on-prem workloads - (pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 07:32:09 GMT)What? Why? It’s an update to its Outposts racks hybrid cloud rigs aimed at bankers and telcosAmazon Web services has created new elastic compute cloud instance types for its on-prem Outposts racks, the second generation of which was announced on Tuesday.… |
