Updated: 19:40 Fri, Feb 06 2026. (Last checked: 94 mins ago [FAILED!]) |
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Let there be light! DARPA seeking physics-defying photonic computers to supercharge AI - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:34:03 GMT)There’s about $35M up for grabs if your circuits can beat today’s limitsIt's no lightweight matter. DARPA is putting about $35 million in total funding on the table in the hope that it will spur researchers to work around fundamental physical constraints and build much larger-scale photonic circuits that do more of the computing with light, not electronics.… |
Four horsemen of the AI-pocalypse line up capex bigger than Israel’s GDP - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:44:05 GMT)Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft eye $635B in infrastructure spendAIpocolypse Four tech megacorps intend to collectively fork out roughly $635 billion this year on capex, much of it for datacenters and AI infrastructure - more than the entire output of Israel's economy and well beyond all global cloud infrastructure services revenue generated last year.… |
Flickr emails users about data breach, pins it on 3rd party - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:56:29 GMT)Attackers may have snapped user locations and activity information, message warnsLegacy image-sharing website Flickr suffered a data breach, according to customers emails seen by The Register.… |
DDoS deluge: Brit biz battered as botnet blitzes break records - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:36:49 GMT)UK leaps to sixth in global flood charts as mega-swarm unleashes 31.4 Tbps Yuletide pummelingCloudflare says DDoS crews ended 2025 by pushing traffic floods to new extremes, while Britain made an unwelcome leap of 36 places to become the world's sixth-most targeted location.… |
Summoning the spirit of the BBC Micro with a Pi 500+ and a can of spray paint - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:18:00 GMT)Rhapsody in beigeAn enterprising engineer has evoked the spirit of Acorn's BBC Micro with a custom paintjob for a Raspberry Pi 500+ computer-in-a-keyboard and a natty set of replacement keycaps.… |
Supermarket sorry after facial recognition alert flags right criminal, wrong customer - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:03:30 GMT)System worked as intended, but staff then kicked out innocent bystanderA British supermarket says staff will undergo further training after a store manager ejected the wrong man when facial recognition technology triggered an alert.… |
Microsoft starts the countdown for the end of Exchange Web Services - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:51:21 GMT)Windows giant might try turning it off and on again to see who noticesMicrosoft has laid out a timeline for the disablement and shutdown of Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online.… |
CISA orders federal agencies to rip out EOL edge kit before cybercrooks move in - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:18:23 GMT)A year to replace end-of-support firewalls, routers, and VPN gatewaysAmerica's federal agencies have been told to hunt down and rip out aging firewalls, routers, and other network gatekeepers before attackers use them as skeleton keys into government systems.… |
Romanian rail workers accused of bribery turned to ChatGPT for legal tips - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:39:43 GMT)Corruption probe takes detour as staff facing trial reportedly asked AI if seat-blocking scams caused financial damageMore than 30 Romanian railway employees accused of running a bribery and ticket resale racket allegedly tried to crowdsource their legal strategy from ChatGPT.… |
Smartphones cleared for launch as NASA loosens the rulebook - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:15:51 GMT)Crew-12 and Artemis II astros may soon snap, shoot, and share from orbitNASA's Administrator has stated that smartphones will accompany the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts on their missions.… |
DWP considers chatbot work coaches as AI-fueled job losses loom - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:53:59 GMT)Benefits system trials automation amid growing interest in universal basic incomeAI-pocalypse Britain's welfare system is experimenting with AI to manage Universal Credit claimants – even as evidence piles up that artificial intelligence may soon be pushing more people onto benefits in the first place.… |
UK council digs deeper into capital assets to keep Oracle project afloat - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:15:10 GMT)West Sussex plans to triple use of property sales as ERP budget blows past original estimatesIn a budget-busting leap from SAP to Oracle, West Sussex County Council is trebling its raid on capital assets such as buildings to fund its "transformational" ERP project.… |
Summer in Australia means beers, beaches, and bork - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 09:30:07 GMT)Supermarket printer error gets holiday off to a shabby startBORK!BORK!BORK! When this vulture excuses himself from The Register's Australian eyrie for a little rest and recreation, I first avoid pyromaniac birds and carnivorous koalas, before settling into a bucolic beach town to catch a few waves, read a few books, and tune out from the world of tech.… |
New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:30:08 GMT)Poking around in deep menus found a fault that flummoxed old handsOn Call Change is a constant – and so is On Call, the reader-contributed column The Register runs every Friday to share your tech support tales.… |
Pakistan to test students for real-world skills before they graduate from IT degrees - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:22:15 GMT)Government decides theoretical knowledge vs. experience debate is worth settlingPakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) has introduced a competency test for students who take degrees in IT, to assess whether they emerge with skills employers will find useful.… |
Atlassian swears it can handle AI without blowing out costs, or being swamped - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:45:26 GMT)CEO feels under-appreciated amid year-long value slumpAtlassian has assured investors it can add AI to its services without blowing out its costs or shrinking margins.… |
Amazon can't build AI capacity fast enough, throws another $200B at the problem - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 02:13:16 GMT)'As fast as we install this AI capacity, we are monetizing it,' says Amazon CEO Andy JassyAWS has an open cash spigot for AI infrastructure, with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy telling investors the company has been monetizing compute capacity as fast as it brings it online and it plans to double capacity by the end of 2027.… |
Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder - (pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:39:52 GMT)The end isn't nigh after allChrome's latest revision of its browser extension architecture, known as Manifest v3 (MV3), was widely expected to make content blocking and privacy extensions less effective than its predecessor, Manifest v2 (MV2).… |
OpenClaw reveals meaty personal information after simple cracks - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 23:32:52 GMT)Skills marketplace is full of stuff - like API keys and credit card numbers - that crims will find tastyAnother day, another vulnerability (or two, or 200) in the security nightmare that is OpenClaw.… |
OpenAI chases business bucks with confusingly named Frontier platform - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:20:27 GMT)IPO, we’re halfway there: AI, livin’ on a prayerOpenAI, a maker of frontier models, has announced a platform called Frontier to help enterprises implement software agents. That's not confusing at all.… |
Substack says intruder lifted emails, phone numbers in months-old breach - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:54:18 GMT)Contact details were accessed in an intrusion that went undetected for months, the blogging outfit saysNewsletter platform Substack has admitted that an intruder swiped user contact details months before the company noticed, forcing it to warn writers and readers that their email addresses and other account metadata were accessed without permission.… |
Asia-based government spies quietly broke into critical networks across 37 countries - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:21:33 GMT)And their toolkit includes a new, Linux kernel rootkitA state-aligned cyber group in Asia compromised government and critical infrastructure organizations across 37 countries in an ongoing espionage campaign, according to security researchers.… |
Stash or splash? Lawmakers ask NASA to find alternatives for International Space Station - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 18:50:15 GMT)What about storing it in high orbit?US lawmakers have asked NASA to look into storing the International Space Station (ISS) in a higher orbit at the end of its operational life, instead of sending the structure hurtling into the ocean when the time comes.… |
Anthropic apes OpenAI with cheeky chatbot commercials - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 18:31:43 GMT)The Claude maker wants you to know about ChatGPT’s ad plansAI companies are looking for new ways of burning cash other than by handing it to hyperscalers for model training. So now they're setting money on fire by buying Super Bowl ads that mock rivals.… |
SpaceX wants to fill Earth orbit with a million datacenter satellites - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:55:51 GMT)The FCC is taking public comments - now’s your chance to tell them this plan is bonkersElon Musk's pie-in-the-sky plan to launch a massive orbital datacenter satellite constellation has taken a rapid step closer to reality with the Federal Communications Commission advancing SpaceX's application for public comment, technical feasibility be damned. … |
Most SAP migrations bust budgets and project timelines, research finds - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:03:53 GMT)As 2027 ECC support cliff looms, half choose not to re-engineer processes in critical ERP upgradeNearly 60 percent of SAP migration projects are delayed and over budget as organizations underestimate complexity, allow expansion of scope, and fail to understand internal constraints, according to research from ISG.… |
Betterment breach may expose 1.4M users after social engineering attack - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:25:00 GMT)Breach-tracking site flags dataset following impersonation-based intrusionBreach-tracking site Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) claims a cyberattack on Betterment affected roughly 1.4 million users – although the investment company has yet to publicly confirm how many customers were affected by January's intrusion.… |
Microsoft declares 'reliability' a priority for Visual Studio AI - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:16:28 GMT)Perhaps a little less focus on AI would help as well?Microsoft says "reliability is the priority" for AI in Visual Studio – a reassurance that may raise eyebrows among developers already living with Copilot's quirks.… |
UK's 'world-first' deepfake detection framework unlikely to stop the fakes, says expert - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:38:44 GMT)Home Office enlists Microsoft to set industry standards as AI-generated forgeries surge from 500K to 8M in two yearsThe UK government claims it will develop a "world-first" framework to evaluate deepfake detection technologies as AI-generated content proliferates.… |
Microsoft sets Copilot agents loose on your OneDrive files - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:15:53 GMT)AI helpers can now rummage through multiple documentsMicrosoft has made OneDrive agents generally available, allowing users to query multiple documents simultaneously through Copilot instead of just one at a time.… |
Curse of AI to push up PC prices as memory and CPU shortages bite - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:14:52 GMT)Component supply is being diverted toward datacenters, squeezing the consumer marketPC buyers can expect price hikes as chipmakers continue to prioritize AI production over all else, restricting the supply of key components across the tech industry.… |
Italy claims cyberattacks 'of Russian origin' are pelting Winter Olympics - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:49:35 GMT)Right on cue, petulant hacktivists attempt to disrupt yet another global sporting eventItaly's foreign minister says the country has already started swatting away cyberattacks from Russia targeting the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.… |
n8n security woes roll on as new critical flaws bypass December fix - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:38:13 GMT)Patch meant to close a severe expression bug fails to stop attackers with workflow accessMultiple newly disclosed bugs in the popular workflow automation tool n8n could allow attackers to hijack servers, steal credentials, and quietly disrupt AI-driven business processes.… |
CentOS is coming to RISC-V soon if you have the kit - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:31:33 GMT)The RHELatives are more versatile than you might realizeFOSDEM 2026 CentOS Connect 2026 took place in Brussels last week, over the two days preceding the sprawling FOSDEM festival of FOSS – the nerd world's Glastonbury, complete with the queues and the questionable hygiene.… |
Cloud sovereignty is no longer just a public sector concern - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:00:08 GMT)Businesses still chase the cheapest option, but politics and licensing shocks are changing priorities, says OpenNebulaInterview Sovereignty remains a hot topic in the tech industry, but interpretations of what it actually means – and how much it matters – vary widely between organizations and sectors. While public bodies are often driven by regulation and national policy, the private sector tends to take a more pragmatic, cost-focused view.… |
UK justice system unplugs from ancient datacenters after five-year slog - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:15:11 GMT)37 court applications shifted off failing kit, though some are camping in a temporary hosting facilityThe courts system in England and Wales has moved 37 applications out of two outdated datacenters, although some will use a temporary hosting facility until they are replaced, according to the senior civil servant responsible.… |
Britain courts private cash to fund 'golden age' of nuclear-powered AI - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 09:30:09 GMT)Framework aims to lure investors into powering the compute boomThe British government today launched the Advanced Nuclear Framework to attract private investment in next-generation nuclear technology for factories and datacenters.… |
Three clues that your LLM may be poisoned with a sleeper-agent back door - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 07:32:12 GMT)It's a threat straight out of sci-fi, and fiendishly hard to detectSleeper agent-style backdoors in AI large language models pose a straight-out-of-sci-fi security threat.… |
Satya Nadella decides Microsoft needs an engineering quality czar - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:46:17 GMT)Picks chap who used to lead Redmond’s security, lures replacement from GoogleMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella has decided Microsoft needs an engineering quality czar, and shifted Charlie Bell, the company’s executive veep for security, into the new role.… |
AI’s lust for memory drags down the smartphone industry, and Qualcomm with it - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 04:21:31 GMT)On the upside, House of the Snapdragon has started shipping its own AI siliconQualcomm has warned that soaring memory prices will mean the smartphone industry will slow, news that so spooked investors they sent the company’s share price sliding by 11 percent.… |
It's bubble or nothing for Google as search giant looks to plow ~$180B into datacenters this year - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 01:32:00 GMT)With revenue topping $400B for the first time, the Chocolate Factory is at no risk of putting itself in the poor houseGoogle’s parent Alphabet is doubling down on generative AI in 2026. On Wednesday's earnings call, the search and advertising giant boosted its full-year capital expenditures target to between $175 and $185 billion, roughly twice what it spent last year.… |
Ghost gun legislation casts shadow over 3D printing - (pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:12:19 GMT)Proposed bills in New York and elsewhere threaten makers, Adafruit saysState and federal lawmakers have stepped up their efforts to prevent the creation of 3D printed guns. But Adafruit, a maker of electronics kits, warns that the proposed legislation is so broad it threatens everyone involved in open source manufacturing and technology education.… |
Workday reveals around 400 staff soon won't have to work another day - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 23:09:30 GMT)Job cuts to fall hardest on non-revenue generating roles on the Global Customer Operations teamWorkday is laying off about two percent of its staff in a bid to align its people with its “highest priorities,” but at a significant cost to its margins for the quarter and the year, the company announced on Wednesday.… |
Bots are taking over the internet and AI users are to blame - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:55:13 GMT)RAG bots could overtake human visitors on publisher sites this year, trackers tell usThe AI bot takeover of the internet continues apace, and the latest data suggests the surge is being driven less by model-training scrapes and more by the growing use of AI tools as a stand-in for web search.… |
Positron: we don’t need no fancy HBM to compete with Nvidia’s Rubin - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:06:19 GMT)Pleb-tier LPDDR5x apparently good enough for Arm-backed AI startup's next-gen Asimov acceleratorsOn paper, Positron's next-gen Asimov accelerators, no doubt named for the beloved science fiction author, don't look like much of a match for Nvidia's Rubin GPUs.… |
AWS intruder achieved admin access in under 10 minutes thanks to AI assist, researchers say - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 21:09:42 GMT)LLMs automated most phases of the attackUPDATED A digital intruder broke into an AWS cloud environment and in just under 10 minutes went from initial access to administrative privileges, thanks to an AI speed assist.… |
Anthropic cements its position as the not-OpenAI with no-ads pledge - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:37:08 GMT)As profit-starved AI companies scramble to monetize chat interactions, Claude bets on trustAnthropic has taken the high road by committing to keep its Claude AI model family free of advertising.… |
Critical SolarWinds Web Help Desk bug under attack - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:15:16 GMT)US agencies told to patch by FridayAttackers are exploiting a critical SolarWinds Web Help Desk bug - less than a week after the vendor disclosed and fixed the 9.8-rated flaw. That's according to America's lead cyber-defense agency, which set a Friday deadline for federal agencies to patch the security flaw.… |
Rise of AI means companies could pass on SaaS - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:00:13 GMT)The writing is on the wall as AI companies race to add vertical functionalitySoftware stocks have taken a beating over the last month as investors grow concerned that AI could put vertical SaaS vendors out of business.… |
US Army looks for robots that can clean up chemical and bioweapons messes - (pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:16:59 GMT)Just in time for the predicted rise of AI-assisted threatsIt's bot versus bot! Just in time for the predicted rise of AI-made biological and chemical weapons, the US Army has plans to fight autonomy with autonomy by getting its hands on some bot-based chemical weapon cleanup tech.… |
