Updated: 20:25 Wed, Feb 18 2026. (Last checked: 72 mins ago [FAILED!]) |
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Google digs deep to power AI expansion with 150 MW geothermal deal - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:41:33 GMT)Plants expected to begin operations as early as 2028 pending approval by state governmentDatacenter power consumption has surged amid the AI boom, forcing builders to get creative in order to prevent their capex-heavy bit barns from running out of steam. But at least in some parts of the world, the answer to abundant clean energy may be hiding just a few thousand feet below the surface of the earth.… |
Copilot spills the beans, summarizing emails it's not supposed to read - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:32:26 GMT)Data Loss Prevention? Yeah, about that...The bot couldn't keep its prying eyes away. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat has been summarizing emails labeled “confidential” even when data loss prevention policies were configured to prevent it.… |
DARPA's autonomous missile-firing missile advances toward flight tests - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:07:07 GMT)Yo dawg, we heard you like missiles, so we put some missiles in your missile so you can boom while you zoomIt's taken about five years, but DARPA's missile-launching missile has become the government's latest experimental X-plane and is advancing toward flight testing.… |
Fraudster hacked hotel system, paid 1 cent for luxury rooms, Spanish cops say - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:31:14 GMT)'First time we have detected a crime using this method,' cops saySpanish police arrested a hacker who allegedly manipulated a hotel booking website, allowing him to pay one cent for luxury hotel stays. He also raided the mini-bars and didn't settle some of those tabs, police say.… |
Windows 11 finally hits right note: MIDI 2.0 support arrives - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:36:23 GMT)Musical instrument digital interface protocol leaves preview for bright lights of General AvailabilityMicrosoft has finally ushered in the era of MIDI 2.0 for Windows 11, more than a year after first teasing the functionality for Windows Insiders.… |
Texas sues TP-Link over China links and security vulnerabilities - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:29:41 GMT)State disputes the company's claim that its routers are made in VietnamTP-Link is facing legal action from the state of Texas for allegedly misleading consumers with "Made in Vietnam" claims despite China-dominated manufacturing and supply chains, and for marketing its devices as secure despite reported firmware vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state-sponsored actors.… |
Deutsche Bahn back on track after DDoS yanks the brakes - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:36:52 GMT)National rail bookings and timetables disrupted for nearly 24 hoursIf you wanted to book a train trip in Germany recently, you would have been out of luck. The country's national rail company says that its services were disrupted for hours because of a cyberattack.… |
6,000 execs struggle to find the AI productivity boom - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:07:27 GMT)Survey says 80% of firms see no gains from the techA survey of almost 6,000 corporate execs across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia found that more than 80 percent detect no discernible impact from AI on either employment or productivity.… |
Your AI-generated password isn't random, it just looks that way - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 14:06:36 GMT)Seemingly complex strings are actually highly predictable, crackable within hoursGenerative AI tools are surprisingly poor at suggesting strong passwords, experts say.… |
Tesla drops 'Autopilot' branding in California after DMV order - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:41:04 GMT)EV maker avoids 30-day license suspension after state ruling on self-driving claimsTesla has complied with an order by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and stopped using the term "Autopilot" in its marketing of electric vehicles, having already modified use of "Full Self-Driving" to clarify that it requires driver supervision.… |
Cabinet Office probes digital ID minister over think tank's journalist investigation - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:17:26 GMT)Starmer orders inquiry after Labour Together commissioned dossier on reportersJosh Simons, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for the UK government's digital identity program, is being probed by the department for his actions running a Labour think tank that commissioned an investigation into journalists.… |
Godot maintainers struggle with 'draining and demoralizing' AI slop submissions - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:10:45 GMT)GitHub itself to blame for AI slop pull requests, say devsRémi Verschelde, a maintainer of the open source Godot game engine, is the latest to complain about the impact of "AI slop PRs [pull requests]", which he says "are becoming increasingly draining and demoralizing for Godot maintainers."… |
Notepad++ declares hardened update process 'effectively unexploitable' - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:41:26 GMT)Miscreants will need to find another avenue for malware shenanigansNotepad++ has continued beefing up security with a release the project's author claims makes the "update process robust and effectively unexploitable."… |
You can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone, says Dutch defense chief - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:11:15 GMT)No worries if the US doesn't want to be friends with Europe anymoreLockheed Martin's F-35 fighter aircraft can be jailbroken "just like an iPhone," the Netherlands' defense secretary has claimed.… |
Windows 11 Start menu makes unscheduled stop in Saint Moritz - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:00:09 GMT)Passenger info display takes scenic detour via desktop and pending updatesBork!Bork!Bork! The curse of bork is not limited to obsolete operating systems or obscure hardware. Today's example of railway signage disruption is something bang up to date from the Swiss town of Saint Moritz.… |
Europe's 5G Standalone stall risks falling behind US, Asia - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:30:09 GMT)Report warns delayed rollouts could widen capability gap as new standards emergeNorth American and Asian markets are enjoying the benefits of a transition to 5G Standalone (SA) mobile networks, but much of Europe lags behind, risking a growing disadvantage as new capabilities roll out.… |
HackerOne 'updating' Ts&Cs after bug hunters question if they're training AI - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:00:07 GMT)CEO lauds security researchers, insists they're not 'inputs'HackerOne has clarified its stance on GenAI after researchers fretted their submissions were being used to train its models.… |
Microsoft throws spox under the bus after Parliament testimony on ICC email kerfuffle - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:15:11 GMT)Apologizes for 'inaccuracy'Exclusive Microsoft has said one of its leading spokespeople gave testimony to the UK Parliament containing an "inaccuracy" with regard to its dealings with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to US sanctions.… |
Linus Torvalds and friends tell <i>The Reg</i> how Linux solo act became a global jam session - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 09:30:07 GMT)Ts'o, Hohndel and the man himself spill beans on how checks in the mail and GPL made it all possibleIf you know anything about Linux's history, you'll remember it all started with Linus Torvalds posting to the Minix Usenet group on August 25, 1991, that he was working on "a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." We know that the "hobby" operating system today is Linux, and except for PCs and Macs, it pretty much runs the world.… |
Qualcomm set to triumph in UK smartphone ‘patent tax’ case - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 06:09:47 GMT)Consumer group Which? brought the case and now plans to bail after court indicated it would loseThe UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has indicated that it will find Qualcomm did not abuse its market power, leading consumer advocacy group Which? to withdraw a case it hoped would see Brits compensated for increased smartphone prices.… |
Palo Alto CEO says AI isn’t great for business, yet - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 04:52:07 GMT)Sees little enterprise AI adoption other than coding assistants, buys Koi for what comes nextIf enterprises are implementing AI, they’re not showing it to Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, who on Tuesday said business adoption of the tech lags consumer take-up by at least a couple of years – except for coding assistants.… |
Indian conglomerate Adani plans very slow $100 billion AI datacenter build - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 02:16:45 GMT)PM Modi tells citizens AI will lift them up, not take their jobsGiant Indian industrial conglomerate Adani has said it will spend up to $100 billion on AI datacenters to equip the nation with sovereign infrastructure, but will do so at slower pace than Big Tech tech companies plan to bring their own bit barns to Bharat.… |
Anthropic's latest Sonnet gets better at using computers, amid bouts of existential angst - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 01:38:32 GMT)Version 4.6 can also be 'warm, honest, prosocial, and at times funny'Anthropic has updated its Sonnet model to version 4.6 and claims the upgrade is better at coding and using computers, and also possesses improved reasoning and planning capabilities.… |
China-linked snoops have been exploiting Dell 0-day since mid-2024, using 'ghost NICs' to avoid detection - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:05:58 GMT)Full scale of infections remains 'unknown'China-linked attackers exploited a maximum-severity hardcoded-credential bug in Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines as a zero-day since at least mid-2024. It's all part of a long-running effort to backdoor infected machines for long-term access, according to Google's Mandiant incident response team.… |
Gemini lies to user about health info, says it wanted to make him feel better - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:59:50 GMT)Though commonly reported, Google doesn't consider it a security problem when models make things upImagine using an AI to sort through your prescriptions and medical information, asking it if it saved that data for future conversations, and then watching it claim it had even if it couldn't. Joe D., a retired software quality assurance (SQA) engineer, says that Google Gemini lied to him and later admitted it was doing so to try and placate him.… |
Amazon's $200 billion capex plan: How I learned to stop worrying and love negative free cash flow - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:26:16 GMT)It isn't insane, and Amazon will be fine when the music stops. Other players, maybe not so muchIn their recent earnings call, Amazon kinda blew the doors off of industry analyst (motto: "we'll be wrong, then take it out on your stock") projections for their capex spend.… |
Infosys bows to its master, signs deal with Anthropic - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:11:10 GMT)After a selloff fueled by fears AI could upend the outsourcing modelIndian IT professionals worried about 72-hour workweeks might soon face the opposite concern, as Bengaluru-based outsourcing giant Infosys has partnered with Anthropic to bring agentic AI to telecommunications companies and other regulated industries.… |
China remains embedded in US energy networks 'for the purpose of taking it down' - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:45:14 GMT)Plus 3 new goon squads targeted critical infrastructure last yearThree new threat groups began targeting critical infrastructure last year, while a well-known Beijing-backed crew - Volt Typhoon - continued to compromise cellular gateways and routers, and then break into US electric, oil, and gas companies in 2025, according to Dragos' annual threat report published on Tuesday.… |
GPU who? Meta to deploy Nvidia CPUs at large scale - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:16:49 GMT)CPU adoption is part of deeper partnership between the Social Network and Nvidia which will see millions of GPUs deployed over next few yearsMove over Intel and AMD — Meta is among the first hyperscalers to deploy Nvidia's standalone CPUs, the two companies revealed on Tuesday. Meta has already deployed Nvidia's Grace processors in CPU-only systems at scale and is working with the GPU slinger to field its upcoming Vera CPUs beginning next year.… |
AI gets all the good stuff, including Micron's speedy 28 GB/s PCIe 6.0 SSD - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:55:13 GMT)Consumers have a long wait ahead of them before they can bring that kind of performance homeIt's time for a new generation of faster flash storage, but not on your laptop or desktop. Micron's first PCIe 6.0 SSDs have entered mass production and promise eye-watering transfer rates of up to 28 GB/s. However, unless you're building flash storage arrays for AI, you won't have a use for them.… |
AI bit barns grow climate emergency by turning up the gas - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 18:54:07 GMT)Companies talk renewables while firing up gas turbines as fast as they canBit barns need a lot of power to operate and, as hyperscalers look for ways to generate it, they are adding more dirty energy in the form of new gas turbines. One estimate says that these new power sources could add another 44 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of 10 million private cars.… |
Scientists show it's possible to solve problems in your dreams by playing the right sounds - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 18:02:43 GMT)Could the same method one day power sleep-time ads?It's like the movie Inception, but without Leonardo DiCaprio, unless you imagine him. Researchers used carefully timed sound cues to nudge dream content, and in some cases, boost next-morning problem solving. Could dreamtime product placement come next?… |
React survey shows TanStack gains, doubts over server components - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:40:00 GMT)Not everyone's convinced React belongs on the server as well as in the browserDevographics has published its State of React survey, with over 3,700 developers speaking out about what they love and hate in the fractured React ecosystem.… |
European Parliament bars lawmakers from using AI tools - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:28:54 GMT)Who knows where that helpful email summary is being generated?The European Parliament has reportedly turned off AI features on lawmakers' devices amid concerns about content going where it shouldn't.… |
Flush with potential? Activist investor insists Japanese toilet giant is an AI sleeper - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:56:52 GMT)Palliser Capital says Toto is sitting on hidden semiconductor value – and wants the company to lift the lidThe AI hype cycle has officially reached the toilet, with a Japanese bathroom giant suddenly being pitched as a serious tech play.… |
Dear Oracle, we need to talk about the future of MySQL - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:49:22 GMT)Faithful pen open letter proposing independent foundation with or without Big Red's participationA group of influential users and developers of MySQL have invited Oracle to join their plans to create an independent foundation to guide the future development of the popular open source database, which Big Red owns.… |
£111M later, frictionless post-Brexit border dream 'brought to early closure' - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:57:04 GMT)With no staff, no funding, and the contract closed, it looks a lot like limboThe UK's long-promised "Single Trade Window" has quietly run out of steam after burning through more than £111 million ($150 million), with officials confirming the program has been "brought to early closure."… |
All the world's a stage – except this deputy federal CIO job - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:45:30 GMT)$200K role promises authority, mission, and 'zero patience for theater'The Trump administration is looking for a deputy federal CIO, and theater fans need not apply.… |
US lawyers fire up privacy class action accusing Lenovo of bulk data transfers to China - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 13:42:03 GMT)Keep behavioral tracking American? PC giant says the claim is 'false'A US law firm has accused Lenovo of violating Justice Department strictures about the bulk transfer of data to foreign adversaries, namely China.… |
Polish cops nab 47-year-old man in Phobos ransomware raid - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 13:14:33 GMT)Police say seized kit contained logins, passwords, and server IP addressesPolish police have arrested and charged a man over ties to the Phobos ransomware group following a property raid.… |
Gentoo dumps GitHub over Copilot nagware - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:36:55 GMT)Repo mirrors now open for businessGentoo's official migration from Microsoft-owned GitHub to Codeberg is underway, as the Linux distribution fulfills a pledge to ditch the code shack due to "continuous attempts to force Copilot usage for our repositories."… |
CIOs told: Prove your AI pays off – or pay the price - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:01:14 GMT)Boards demand measurable ROI as budgets, bonuses, and jobs hang in the balanceThe clock is ticking for AI projects to either prove their worth or face the chopping block.… |
UK.gov launches cyber 'lockdown' campaign as 80% of orgs still leave door open - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:30:15 GMT)Digital burglaries remain routine, and data shows most corps still don't stick to basic infosec standardsBritain is telling businesses to "lock the door" on cybercrims as new government data suggests most still haven't even found the latch.… |
Ireland joins regulator smackdown after X's Grok AI accused of undressing people - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:08:36 GMT)Social media platform’s legal eagles prepare to fight ever-growing number of countriesThe Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the latest regulator to open an investigation into Elon Musk's X following repeated reports of harmful image generation by the platform's Grok AI chatbot.… |
Capita taps Microsoft Copilot to dig it out from UK pensions backlog - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:31:50 GMT)Outsourcer tells MPs AI is prioritizing cases as thousands of civil servants face delaysCapita is banking on Microsoft Copilot to help rescue the backlog of cases it has inherited in taking over the UK Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS).… |
GitHub previews Agentic Workflows as part of continuous AI concept - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:48:07 GMT)Won't replace traditional CI/CD – and still in early development – so use 'at your own risk'Agentic workflows - where an AI agent runs automatically in GitHub Actions - are now in technical preview, following their introduction at the Universe event in San Francisco last year.… |
MoD ticks shopping list as PM considers weapons budget boost - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:14:00 GMT)Top brass splash cash on acoustic targeting, hypersonic missiles…and Red HatKeir Starmer could ramp up the UK's defense spending plans faster than planned as the MoD reeled off new purchases for Britain's armed forces.… |
Passive RFIDs can now stream telemetry data from sensors - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:39:45 GMT)To advance the ‘ambient internet of things’ – no batteries requiredA quartet of Japanese organisations plan to build “advanced ambient internet of things systems” using a newly approved ISO standard.… |
AWS adds nested virtualization option for handful of EC2 instances - (pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 01:36:29 GMT)Your chance to run a VM inside a VM, inside a cloud – which can mean WSL on a cloudy Windows PCAmazon Web Services has enabled nested virtualization for a handful of EC2 instances.… |
Canada Goose ruffles feathers over 600K record dump, says leak is old news - (pubDate>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:01:07 GMT)Fashion brand latest to succumb to ShinyHunters' tricksCanada Goose says an advertised breach of 600,000 records is an old raid and there are no signs of a recent compromise.… |
