Updated: 18:50 Fri, Mar 27 2026. (Last checked: 14 mins ago) |
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Folk are getting dangerously attached to AI that always tells them they're right - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:25:14 GMT)Sycophantic bots coach users into selfish, antisocial behavior, say researchers, and they love itAI can lead mentally unwell people to some pretty dark places, as a number of recent news stories have taught us. Now researchers think sycophantic AI is actually having a harmful effect on everyone.… |
Apple's last tower topples… and the others will follow - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:35:54 GMT)Farewell, Mac Pro: Increasing integration means the end of expandable computersApple has discontinued the Mac Pro – but it's just the first of the tower computers to go. The rest will follow soon.… |
Senators want datacenters to come clean on power consumption - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:40:47 GMT)Ratepayer Protection Pledge is unenforceable without hard numbers, Warren and Hawley argueUS senators are pushing to require datacenters and other large energy customers to report consumption, arguing the data is essential to hold them accountable to local communities.… |
Microsoft tells crusty old kernel drivers to get with the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:03:49 GMT)Cross-signed code gets the cold shoulder as Redmond tightens trustMicrosoft is removing trust for kernel drivers that haven't been through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) in a bid to further secure the Windows kernel.… |
Commercial space pleads with NASA to stop moving the goalposts in orbit - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:15:15 GMT)Private station hopefuls say ISS rethink is shaking confidenceNASA's new Moon plan isn't the only policy shift causing concern. Parts of the commercial space industry are also uneasy about the agency's latest change of direction.… |
AFC Ajax drops ball as flaws let hackers play admin with tickets and bans - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:30:11 GMT)Vulns in Dutch football club's systems didn't just expose data – they let outsiders play with accounts, and even lift stadium bansDutch football giant AFC Ajax has admitted to a data breach after an attacker gained access to its internal systems, in an incident that looks less like a stray pass and more like the gates left wide open.… |
Iran war drives urgent need to counter underwater attack drones - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:17:32 GMT)US and UK forces seeking tech tender with an April 3 deadlineThe UK and US are looking for technology to counter the threat posed by underwater drones to ships, harbors and other critical maritime infrastructure, and are asking industry for answers.… |
Lloyds app glitch turned transactions into shared experience for 447k users - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:18:08 GMT)A botched update mixed up transaction data across accounts, with thousands now receiving goodwill payoutsA botched overnight software update at Lloyds Banking Group left up to 447,000 customers briefly seeing other people's transactions in its mobile apps, with the bank now acknowledging the scale of the incident and compensating affected users.… |
UK government admits Capita pension portal was crapita at launch - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 09:30:08 GMT)PAC grilling reveals £239M bought a system that couldn't handle the work, the volumes, or placeholder textA UK government official has admitted Capita did not reach the expected level of performance following the disastrous launch of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) web portal late last year.… |
Engineer sabotaged hardware then complained when it didn't work - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:30:09 GMT)The 600 km drive to fix the mess was a special treatOn Call Every week is special in its own way, and The Register celebrates that fact by using Friday mornings to deliver a fresh installment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed column that shares your memories of managing IT messes someone else made.… |
Security boffins scoured the web and found hundreds of valid API keys - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:04:15 GMT)Global bank's devs have some cleaning up to do after cloud creds found in website codeComputer security boffins have conducted an analysis of 10 million websites and found almost 2,000 API credentials strewn across 10,000 webpages.… |
India's space program can't spend money fast enough, putting missions in peril - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:42:56 GMT)Satnav systems aren't well, IP is being sold too cheap, and thousands of roles remain openIndia’s space program has thousands of vacant roles it’s struggled to fill, isn’t spending money fast enough to meet its mission timelines, and may be undervaluing intellectual property it sells to the private sector.… |
China's not thrilled its AI experts want to leave the country - (pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:41:33 GMT)Urges scientists to avoid major conference, and looks unkindly on Meta's Manus acquisitionChina appears to be unhappy about its brightest AI talent going offshore, either to visit or to sell their wares.… |
Anthropic tweaks timed usage limits to discourage Claude demand during peak hours - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 22:15:37 GMT)AI biz makes some Claude conversations more costly to manage capacityAnthropic on Wednesday adjusted its opaque usage limits for Claude customers by reducing the power of the services it delivers during times of peak demand, in an effort to balance demand with its capacity to deliver service.… |
AI companies lick their chops as FCC proposes forcing call center onshoring - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 22:11:07 GMT)You actually think companies are going to pay Americans to take customer service calls in the AI age?Uncle Sam is trying to make American call centers great again. The question is whether they will be great because they're filled with local workers or whether this will provide yet another excuse for companies to turn customer service jobs over to AI.… |
AWS would prefer to forget March ever happened in its UAE region - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:39:13 GMT)Cloud giant waives an entire month of charges, then erases the billing data. There is literally nothing to see here.I received an email / billing notification from AWS this week that may be the most diplomatically crafted communication in the history of cloud computing. Here it is, stripped of the usual boilerplate around it:… |
AMD's new desktop CPU oozes cache out of all 16 cores - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:12:08 GMT)Turns out massive caches are good for more than games. House of Zen boasts 5-13% perf boost over prior-gen partAMD aims to extend its lead in desktop gaming with a new CPU, dubbed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. This top-of-the-line part has 16 cores fed by an absolutely massive 208 MB pool of cache, with memory spread across both CCDs.… |
'Empathetic' Salesforce bots to help those fired by uncaring humans - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:41:23 GMT)I’m sorry, Dave. I can’t give you your job back, but here’s the form you fill out to collect benefitsThere’s a joke in Boston that goes: the people in Southie will steal your wallet and help you look for it.… |
Using AI to code does not mean your code is more secure - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:38:41 GMT)Use of AI coding assistants has surged, but so has the number of vulnerabilities in AI-generated codeAs more people use AI tools to write code, the tools themselves are introducing more vulnerabilities.… |
Apple signs meaningless deal to make some less-important parts in America - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:09:49 GMT)Maybe that's why Tim didn't get an invitation to the President's tech bro club?Apple's American Manufacturing Program (AMP) is expanding, with new suppliers signed on to produce iPhone components - though those parts will still be shipped overseas for final assembly. Tim Apple may continue avoiding tariffs but he probably won't win a lot of brownie points with President Trump.… |
Staff too scared of the AI axe to pick it up, Forrester finds - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:33:50 GMT)Your AI rollout isn't failing – your employees just hate itIf your company isn't seeing great returns from its investment in AI, you might want to look at the humans tasked with deploying it and how you can motivate them. Right now, many employees fear AI-driven job losses and aren't well trained to use the tech, according to Forrester.… |
Linear moves sideways to agentic AI as CEO declares issue tracking dead - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:32:26 GMT)Agent will capture issues and eventually debug codeThe Linear cloudy issue tracker and project manager has introduced an AI agent and plans to add AI coding assistance, with CEO and co-founder Karri Saarinen declaring that "issue tracking is dead."… |
AI bug reports went from junk to legit overnight, says Linux kernel czar - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:40:26 GMT)Greg Kroah-Hartman can't explain the inflection point, but it's not slowing down or going awayInterview I was at a press luncheon at KubeCon Europe this week when, to my surprise, who should sit down next to me but long-term Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman. Greg, who lives in the Netherlands these days, was there to briefly comment on AI, Linux, and security. We spoke about how, over the last month, AI-driven activity around Linux security and code review has "really jumped" in a way no one in the open source world saw coming.… |
Three more charged over alleged Nvidia GPU smuggling scheme to China - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:03:19 GMT)Prosecutors say trio used Thai front companies to reroute high-end AI serversThe US has collared three more people for allegedly attempting to smuggle Nvidia GPUs to China, days after a Supermicro co-founder faced similar accusations.… |
Brit lawmaker targeted by AI deepfake fails to get answers from US Big Tech - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:49:29 GMT)Appearing before Parliament, Meta, Google and X struggle to explain how fake political video circulated for so longA member of the UK Parliament's lower house who was the victim of a deepfake AI campaign this week had a rare chance to confront the Big Tech executives who helped spread it. Their answers disappointed.… |
Digital euro goes full sovereignty mode, US cloud giants not on guest list - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:00:14 GMT)Central bank turns to homegrown providers to underpin virtual cash pushEurope is taking a small step toward breaking its reliance on US Big Tech by hiring only cloud operators headquartered in the EU to work on the backbone of the digital euro project.… |
Welsh government used Copilot for review to justify closing organization - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:15:07 GMT)Microsoft's Clippy for 21st century deployed to evaluate returns? Industry Wales chair brands it just 'wrong'The Welsh government used Microsoft's Copilot to help write a review of an industry liaison body that it then scrapped, its chairman has told a Senedd committee.… |
UK wants to know if banning under-16s from social media does anything useful - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:30:05 GMT)300 families undergo 6-week trial to test impact on sleep, school, and home lifeThe UK government will trial different levels of restrictions on social media for under-16s with the help of 300 families, alongside a public consultation that has already gathered nearly 30,000 responses.… |
Go for a walk, man: Sony's drive to create a car parked by partner Honda - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 06:24:36 GMT)CarStation/PlayMobile won’t hit the road after pile-up of tax and competition issues in China and the USASony and Honda have broken up, meaning their joint vision to deliver a revolutionary electric vehicle won’t happen.… |
Indian government probes CCTV espionage operation linked to Pakistan - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 03:18:01 GMT)Police found cameras pointing at infrastructureIndian authorities have reportedly ordered an audit of the nation’s CCTV cameras, after police uncovered what they claim was a Pakistan-backed surveillance operation.… |
Datacenter batteries are selling years in advance, because AI, says Panasonic - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:58:00 GMT)Shifting production from automotive to compute and working on supercapacitors as another way to protect workloadsMajor memory makers have already sold all the kit they can make this year, creating shortages and price increases. Datacenter infrastructure buyers may soon face the same issues when trying to get their hands on backup batteries.… |
GitHub hits CTRL-Z, decides it will train its AI with user data after all - (pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:13:36 GMT)As of April 24 you'll be feeding the Octocat unless you opt outMicrosoft's GitHub next month plans to begin using customer interaction data – "specifically inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context" – to train its AI models.… |
AI supply chain attacks don’t even require malware…just post poisoned documentation - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:50:59 GMT)A proof-of-concept attack on Context Hub suggests there's not much content santizationA new service that helps coding agents stay up to date on their API calls could be dialing in a massive supply chain vulnerability.… |
Scammers have virtual smartphones on speed dial for fraud - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:25:53 GMT)They cleverly mimic most traits of a real phoneSmartphones have fast become the basis of our digital identities, securing payment systems and bank accounts. Now virtual devices that pretend to be real handsets have become a key tool for financial scammers, according to one company. … |
Jen Easterly, cybersecurity's 'relentless optimist,' hopes feds come back to RSAC next year - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:39:29 GMT)Ex-CISA boss also says no reason to panic about AI and securityRSAC 2026 "Everybody feels massive FOMO if they don't get to RSAC," Jen Easterly says.… |
Only Trump can decide when cyberwar turns into real war - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:55:14 GMT)Four former NSA bosses walk onto the stage at RSAC…rsac 2026 There's a theoretical red line with cyber warfare. Cross it, and the US will respond with a physical attack like missile strikes. And that line "is whatever the President says it is," according to former NSA boss retired General Paul Nakasone.… |
Meta cuts about 700 jobs as it shifts spending to AI - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:27:13 GMT)Forget the metaverseMeta has begun laying off employees as it focuses more of its cash on building out datacenters, training its own large language models, and recruiting talent for AI.… |
Oracle: AI agents can reason, decide and act - liability question remains - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:47:11 GMT)Fusion Agentic Applications promise autonomous enterprise decisions. Gartner urges cautionOracle says it's building a suite of AI agents into its cloud-based enterprise applications, claiming they can make and execute decisions autonmomously within business processes. But analysts are urging caution given unresolved questions around data integration and liability.… |
Trump remembers to appoint science panel, fills it mostly with tech bros - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:17:45 GMT)Plus one actual physicistDonald Trump has named the first members of his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), largely comprising Trump allies in the tech industry and one actual scientist.… |
OpenAI now gets to decide which type of product assassin it will become - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:36:56 GMT)AWS, Google, Broadcom, or Netscape?OpenAI on Wednesday announced the death of its controversial Sora video creation tool, just two days after publishing a guide on how to use it well.… |
Firefox 149 adds a free VPN and finally plays nice with Linux dialogs - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:19:56 GMT)In other browser news, Opera now caters to penguinista gamersFirefox 149 is here, and although we've already talked about one of the big new features on the way, the release version has some others that will be very welcome.… |
Microsoft and Nvidia claim AI can speed approval of new atomic plants - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:35:12 GMT)Effort includes permitting and planningMicrosoft is working with Nvidia on nuclear power. Not to build it, but to offer AI-driven tools to deal with all the red tape, help with the design work, and optimize operations for nuclear projects.… |
NASA's lunar reboot is long on ambition, short on answers - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:11:55 GMT)Exactly how will astronauts get to and from that moonbase?Opinion NASA's Ignition presentation was heavy on space hardware, but light on details. Not least of which was how astronauts are supposed to get from Earth to its moonbase and back.… |
JetBrains shifts to agentic dev with Central, retires pair programming - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:29:10 GMT)Bye-bye Code With Me as company focuses on other areasDev tooling biz JetBrains has previewed Central for agentic AI software development but will retire the Code With Me human pair programming feature.… |
Dell slims down business laptops, fattens up cooling and battery life - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:00:07 GMT)Pro line gets new naming convention and some serious upgradesDell's upcoming 2026 commercial laptops won't leave recent buyers kicking themselves - but they do bring meaningful upgrades, including a thinner Pro 7, larger batteries, and improved thermals.… |
Windows 95 let installers trash its files then fixed the mess behind their backs - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:30:06 GMT)I'll just clear up that up, shall I?Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen has shared another nugget of Windows lore – what Windows 95 did when installers stomped on its system files.… |
HMRC hands £473M Fujitsu migration deal to AWS after competition melts away - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:18:46 GMT)Insiders say single-bidder process left little room for negotiationThe UK's tax collection agency has awarded Amazon Web Services – the only remaining bidder – a contract worth nearly £500 million to migrate services from three Fujitsu-run datacenters and host them for up to a decade.… |
Samsung still glued to its bad habits with Galaxy S26 Ultra - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:41:35 GMT)Flagship phone scores 5/10 from iFixit as the parts that break most often remain firmly out of reachSamsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra has once again scored a middling 5/10 from iFixit, suggesting that while the company knows how to build a repairable phone, it still won't quite follow through.… |
Open source isn't a tip jar – it's time to charge for access - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:00:07 GMT)A handful thrive, most scrape by as companies make billions off their codeOpinion Time and again, I see people begging for companies with deep pockets to fund open source projects. I mean, after all, they've made billions from this code. You'd think they could support the code's creators and maintainers. It would be only fair, right?… |
YouTuber lands on Moon using a ZX Spectrum. Conditions apply - (pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:15:14 GMT)BASIC and bit-banging used to guide a simulated lander down to a virtual lunar touchdownCould Sinclair's 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum land a spacecraft on the Moon? YouTuber Scott Manley decided to find out, and the answer is… kind of.… |
