Updated: 08:00 Tue, Sep 10 2024. (Last checked: 28 mins ago) |
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be gone in ten years – for chump change - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 06:33:13 GMT)$7.5 billion needed, the kind of cash Apple makes without tryingVideo After six years of sea trials, environmental group The Ocean Cleanup claims it has proved that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating mass of plastic waste twice the size of Texas – could be cleaned up in ten years using current technology, at a cost of a mere $7.5 billion.… |
Thanks, Edward Snowden: you propelled China to quantum networking leadership - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 05:30:12 GMT)Beijing aimed research at immediate needs – like blocking leaks – while the US sought abstract knowledgeChina has an undeniable lead in quantum networking technology – a state of affairs that should give the US pause, despite its lead in quantum computing.… |
US spends CHIPS Act cash to explore Indian chipmaking collabs - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 04:15:13 GMT)Starting with an analysis of what India has to offer, which is plentyThe US has decided to partner with India and its Semiconductor Mission (ISM) to grow and diversify global chip supply chains.… |
Malaysia's plan to block overseas DNS dies after a day - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 02:29:09 GMT)Minister orders regulator to slow down following immediate backlashMalaysia's telecom regulator has abandoned a plan to block overseas DNS services a day after announcing it, following a sharp backlash and accusations of government overreach.… |
US sets reporting requirements for AI models, infrastructure operators - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 01:29:08 GMT)Washington wants to know what the biggest model-makers are up toThe US Commerce Department has proposed a fresh set of reporting requirements for developers of cutting-edge AI models and those renting the infrastructure required to train them.… |
Google insists the ad tech business ain't broke, urges Washington not to fix it - (pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:31:09 GMT)As its other monopoly trial - the one brought by the DoJ and eight states - begins in VirginiaGoogle defended its advertising technology businesses in the court of public opinion on Sunday, just as its attorneys prepared similar arguments against US antitrust allegations now being heard in a Virginia courtroom.… |
Feds urge 3D printing industry to end DIY machine guns - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 23:30:12 GMT)DoJ, ATF target MCDs, but what about the printers?The US Department of Justice is turning to the 3D printing industry to help combat the scourge of machine gun conversion devices (MCDs) used by criminals to turn semi-automatic firearms into deadly bullet sprayers. … |
WhatsApp's 'View Once' could be 'View Whenever' due to a flaw - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 22:15:09 GMT)It promised vanishing messages, but now 'it's privacy theater'Video A popular privacy feature in WhatsApp is "completely broken and can be trivially bypassed," according to developers at cryptowallet startup Zengo.… |
Apple debuts iPhone 16, Watch Series 10, assorted AirPods - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 21:01:24 GMT)Setting the stage for pending AI feature while doubling down on health techApple just introduced its iPhone 16 line, Watch Series 10, and assorted AirPods, and also set formal release dates next week for its iOS 18 and watchOS 11 software.… |
OneFileLinux: A tiny recovery distro that fits snugly in your EFI system partition - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:16:53 GMT)The kind of thing the big names should be doing instead of working with proprietary vendorsOneFileLinux is a very different sort of distro that runs entirely from your UEFI system partition, without a bootable USB key or any other partitions on the disk.… |
Russia's top-secret military unit reportedly plots undersea cable 'sabotage' - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:15:09 GMT)US alarmed by heightened Kremlin naval activity worldwideRussia's naval activity near undersea cables is reportedly drawing the scrutiny of US officials, further sparking concerns that the Kremlin may be plotting to "sabotage" underwater infrastructure via a secretive, dedicated military unit called the General Staff Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI).… |
DoE drops $23M in effort to reinvigorate supercomputing - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 19:15:14 GMT)Challenges span energy efficiency, memory, programmability, and national securityThe US Department of Energy has launched a $23 million program aimed at overcoming a litany of supercomputing performance bottlenecks.… |
In profitability push Mobileye dumps LiDAR, slashes workforce - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 18:16:43 GMT)But then again is LiDAR even on the radar in 2024?Mobileye is axing its light detection and ranging (LiDAR) research team, noting the tech has fallen out of favor in the automated driver assist space though to the keen observer it might be looking for any way to save money.… |
GenAI hype meets harsh reality as enterprises wrestle with business case - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 17:30:15 GMT)Nvidia, Equinix clearly making a killing over costs, confusion, and cold feetEnterprises are still struggling with the business case for generative AI projects more than a year after the craze started, and we may have to wait until the end of 2025 to see if they're seen through to completion.… |
Avis alerts nearly 300k car renters that crooks stole their info - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 16:45:10 GMT)'Insider wrongdoing' to blame for the breachAvis Rent A Car System has alerted 299,006 customers across multiple US states that their personal information was stolen in an August data breach.… |
1.7M potentially pwned after payment services provider takes a year to notice break-in - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 16:00:08 GMT)Criminals with plenty of time on their hands may now have credit card detailsAround 1.7 million people will receive a letter from Florida-based Slim CD, if they haven't already, after the company detected an intrusion dating back nearly a year.… |
Cluster II spacecraft reenters and burns up with a nod to its controllers - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:15:54 GMT)Salsa's final act: Reminding us it was the humans all alongThe European Space Agency (ESA) has bid farewell to the Cluster II spacecraft with a final set of commands to show that engineers are indeed human.… |
Rapidus, rapidly running through funds, needs $700M for 2nm chip plant - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:46:27 GMT)Japanese government has also earmarked $6.4B for the projectJapanese chip upstart Rapidus has only worked on its 2nm wafer fab in Hokkaido for a year, yet the company is reportedly already seeking ¥100 billion ($699 million) in additional funding for the project.… |
Kremlin-linked COLDRIVER crooks take pro-democracy NGOs for phishy ride - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 13:45:12 GMT)The latest of many attempts to stifle perceived threats to Putin's regimeA pro-democracy NGO in Russia says it looks like the Kremlin-linked COLDRIVER group was behind last month's hack-and-leak job that saw files and inboxes dumped online.… |
Microsoft exec warns of business functions being sacrificed on the altar of AI - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 13:00:12 GMT)Too many IT modernization projects? Not enough budget? Something will have to giveArun Ulag, Microsoft corporate vice president for Azure Data, reckons that, in a world of constrained or finite IT budgets, something will have to give if new projects are to thrive.… |
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin waves bye bye to October 13 ESCAPADE - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 12:15:11 GMT)Mars adventure postponed to 2025. PerhapsNASA has decided the two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft planned to be launched on the maiden flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will not be fueled and will instead take a ride to Mars next year. Maybe.… |
Ubuntu Noble updates on hold while 20th anniversary teaser bears retro-styled gifts - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:25:11 GMT)22.04 to 24.04 upgrade temporarily withdrawn, but will be backUbuntu 24.04.1 is still available, but for now you can't update to it from Jammy Jellyfish until a bug is sorted. To compensate, there are some fun goodies coming in 24.10.… |
Openreach pitches its tent as Ofcom preps review of broadband market rules - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 10:55:44 GMT)Nation's dominant broadband plumber keen to fend off any efforts to restrict itOpenreach wants Reg readers to know that the UK's fixed telecoms market is coming along just fine, and is imploring regulators to not spoil it by, for example, listening to what competitors say.… |
CrowdStrike hopes legal threats will fade as time passes since it broke the world - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 09:30:08 GMT)CFO says company hasn't been sued by any customers – yetCrowdStrike has yet to face a lawsuit over July's global IT meltdown, according to CFO Burt Podbere.… |
Upgrading Linux with Rust looks like a new challenge. It's one of our oldest - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 08:30:15 GMT)From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever built. Not even a kernelOpinion The Rusting of Linux proceeds apace. Of course there are problems, some technical, some very human. Last week saw one of the leading Rusties sign off from the project, quoting "non-technical" barriers to progress. That'll be people, then.… |
Python script saw students booted off the mainframe for sending one insult too many - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 07:28:14 GMT)Come and see the violence inherent in the system!Who, Me? The Register does not particularly like Mondays, but rather than shoot the whole day down we prefer to brighten it with a fresh instalment of Who, Me? in which Reg readers share tales of times the silicon chips inside their heads got switched to overload.… |
MI6 and CIA using generative AI to combat tech-driven threat actors - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 06:34:08 GMT)Spook bosses use first-ever joint article to bemoan how Russia and China use tech to mess with the worldCIA director Bill Burns and UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) chief Richard Moore have for the first time penned a joint opinion piece in which the two spookmasters reveal their agencies have adopted generative AI.… |
Scientists find a common food dye can make a live mouse's skin transparent - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 05:03:58 GMT)Do try this one at home, using a chicken breast and a recipeScientists have discovered a common food colorant has a remarkable property - making the skin of live mice transparent, so the organs beneath become visible.… |
AI bills can blow out by 1000 percent: Gartner - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 03:40:16 GMT)Preventing that is doable, but managing what happens when AI upsets people is hardOrganizations adopting AI need to learn how to manage the emotional and monetary costs the tech creates, while also worrying about capturing productivity benefits, according to analyst firm Gartner.… |
Predator spyware updated with dangerous new features, also now harder to track - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 02:00:23 GMT)Plus: Trump family X accounts hijacked to promote crypto scam; Fog ransomware spreads; Hijacked PyPI packages; and moreInfosec in brief After activating its chameleon field and going to ground following press attention earlier this year, the dangerous Predator commercial spyware kit is back – with upgrades.… |
Huawei debuts triple-folding Mate XT smartphone - (pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 01:00:07 GMT)Plus: 550MW more DCs for India; Australia poised to use decryption powers; Indonesia creates cyber warfare unitAsia In Brief Huawei has revealed an image of the Mate XT, the world's first tri-folding smartphone – and that was apparently enough to spark over a million orders for the device.… |
Xockets rockets Nvidia: Blackwell debut threatened by DPU patent claims - (pubDate>Sun, 08 Sep 2024 11:53:09 GMT)GPU giant accused of colluding with Microsoft, RPX to sideline startupNvidia is embroiled in an antitrust'n'patent lawsuit, which alleges the GPU giant colluded with Microsoft and the intellectual property risk management firm RPX to rip off the data processing unit (DPU) developer Xockets' designs.… |
What do Uber drivers make of Waymo? 'We are cooked' - (pubDate>Sat, 07 Sep 2024 17:14:12 GMT)Robotaxis, low pay may be end of the road for app cabbies in San FranciscoFeature The Uber driver who picked me up the other day doesn't think the ride-sharing app has much of a future in San Francisco.… |
Boeing's Calamity Capsule returns to Earth without a crew - (pubDate>Sat, 07 Sep 2024 16:36:06 GMT)What now for these pod people?Boeing's Calamity Capsule has returned to Earth, bringing to an end a test mission that did not go entirely according to plan. Not least because the Starliner's crew had to stay behind aboard the International Space Station.… |
Despite cyberattacks, water security standards remain a pipe dream - (pubDate>Sat, 07 Sep 2024 12:33:09 GMT)White House floats round two of regulationsFeature It sounds like the start of a bad joke: Digital trespassers from China, Russia, and Iran break into US water systems.… |
Blood boffins build billions of nanobots to battle brain aneurysms without surgery - (pubDate>Sat, 07 Sep 2024 08:16:10 GMT)Good news for rabbits, maybe great news soon for humans?An international team of scientists has developed a drug delivery system that could one day treat human brain aneurysms in a way without the need for traditional surgery.… |
FTC urged to stop tech makers downgrading devices after you've bought them - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 23:00:07 GMT)Some brick devices they'd rather not support, kill apps that drive functions, or add post-sale subscriptionsConsumer and digital rights activists are calling on the US Federal Trade Commission to stop device-makers using software to reduce product functionality, bricking unloved kit, or adding surprise fees post-purchase.… |
Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 21:44:14 GMT)Not so much when trying to convert coding veteransGoogle recently rewrote the firmware for protected virtual machines in its Android Virtualization Framework using the Rust programming language and wants you to do the same, assuming you deal with firmware.… |
Trump taps Musk to lead 'government efficiency' task force - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 21:00:06 GMT)Surely this duty will be executed without bias toward NHTSA, FAA, DOJ, NLRBIf Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the election in November, he plans to create a "government efficiency commission" based on ideas from Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk, who will also lead the body.… |
Cisco merch shoppers stung in Magecart attack - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 20:00:06 GMT)The 'security issue' was caused by a 9.8-rated Magento flaw Adobe patched back in JuneBad news for anyone who purchased a Cisco hoodie earlier this month: Suspected Russia-based attackers injected data-stealing JavaScript into the networking giant's online store selling Cisco-branded merch.… |
ESA prints 3D metal shape in space for first time - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 19:00:09 GMT)Tech demo paves way to producing spare parts and tools during missionsThe European Space Agency (ESA) has shown off the first 3D metal part printed on the International Space Station (ISS).… |
Qualcomm reportedly eyeing Intel's PC design biz and more - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 18:00:08 GMT)Chipzilla hasn't collapsed yet but the vultures are circlingQualcomm reportedly aims to cash in on Intel's financial woes by stripping the ailing chipmaker of parts.… |
Dutch government takes ASML export measures off Uncle Sam's hands - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 17:00:11 GMT)Photolithography giant assures customers it is under no new restrictionsASML has moved to assure customers and investors that it is subject to no new restrictions following an announcement that expands the Netherlands government's own role in export control measures.… |
Salesforce now owns Own Company after $1.9B bargain hunt - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 15:28:11 GMT)Acquisition of SaaS backup vendor ends mega-merger moratoriumHaving adopted Own Company's technology, Salesforce has decided to buy the SaaS data protection and data management outfit for $1.9 billion in cash.… |
Competition watchdog accuses Google of abusing ad dominance - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 14:01:08 GMT)Provisional findings echo worries in the US and EC about the search giant's dominanceThe UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has administered a provisional rap over Google's knuckles for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the advertising technology marketplace.… |
Defense AI models 'a risk to life' alleges spurned tech firm - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 12:28:10 GMT)Chatterbox Labs CEO claims Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office unfairly cancelled a contract then accused him of blackmailIn-depth Chatterbox Lab CEO Danny Coleman alleges that after three and a half years of uncompensated work to provide the US Defense Department with tools for "Responsible AI," he found himself accused of trying to blackmail the government.… |
Foot-thick wall workaround: Gigabit network links beamed through solid concrete - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 12:15:33 GMT)Makes cabling a bit less onerous, says WaveCore makerAirvine Scientific has a product that could make life easier for IT staff. WaveCore is designed to beam a network signal through thick concrete walls, eliminating the need to drill holes or route your cabling via a circuitous course.… |
Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 10:26:28 GMT)Carbon capture outfits could be making up to $45B, say analystsThe datacenter industry is set to emit 2.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide between now and the end of the decade, three times more than if generative AI had not been developed.… |
Pat Gelsinger's grand plan to reinvent Intel is in jeopardy - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 09:32:14 GMT)Foundry faces a reckoningComment Intel's fledgling foundry business is in trouble. The division is bleeding billions each quarter and now the chipmaker has revealed that it won't even manufacture parts on its own long-awaited 20A node.… |
Oak Ridge boffins enlist Quantum Brilliance to make supercomputers sparkle at room temp - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:30:08 GMT)Diamond-based accelerators could help smash science problemsOak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is working with a company called Quantum Brilliance on the integration of quantum systems and high-performance computing (HPC) to tackle scientific concerns.… |