Updated: 19:50 Fri, Jan 24 2025. (Last checked: fresh!) |
Linux rolls out the welcome mat for Microsoft's Copilot key - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 19:35:11 GMT)But what the heck should it do?Great news, Linux fans! Support for the Copilot key is coming in 6.14. What do you think it should do?… |
What happens when we can’t just build bigger AI datacenters anymore? - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 18:30:11 GMT)We stitch together enormous supercomputers from other smaller supercomputers of courseFeature Generative AI models have not only exploded in popularity over the past two years, but they've also grown at a precipitous rate, necessitating ever larger quantities of accelerators to keep up.… |
Qualcomm big cheese Cristiano Amon's pay award jumps 10% - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:28:09 GMT)At $25.91 million, CEO is worth 261 employeesQualcomm's top dog Cristian Amon enjoyed a ten percent year-on-year bump in total financial compensation for fiscal 2024 that amounted to $25.91 million.… |
Europe, UK weigh up how to respond to Trump's proposed tariffs. One WTF or two? - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 16:22:07 GMT)Could a post-Brexit romance be on the cards?The UK and EU must decide whether to coordinate a response to Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on stuff imported into the United States, or cut separate deals with the new president, the House of Lords heard this week.… |
Don't want your Kubernetes Windows nodes hijacked? Patch this hole now - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 15:00:08 GMT)SYSTEM-level command injection via API parameter *chef's kiss*A now-fixed command-injection bug in Kubernetes can be exploited by a remote attacker to gain code execution with SYSTEM privileges on all Windows endpoints in a cluster, and thus fully take over those systems, according to Akamai researcher Tomer Peled.… |
Boeing warns of more financial hits due to strikes, costlier parts – and Starliner, of course - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 14:28:10 GMT)Calamity Capsule continues to be calamitous for the bottom lineBoeing is warning of another hit to its bottom line, at least partly at the hands of the company's Calamity Capsule, the CST-100 Starliner.… |
North Korean dev who renamed himself 'Bane' accused of IT worker fraud caper - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:45:09 GMT)5 indicted as FBI warns North Korea dials up aggression, plus Russian devs allegedly get in on the actThe US is indicting yet another five suspects it believes were involved in North Korea's long-running, fraudulent remote IT worker scheme – including one who changed their last name to "Bane" and scored a gig at a tech biz in San Francisco.… |
Mega UK datacenter greenlit, but we still don't know who's moving in - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:01:30 GMT)Hyperscaler mystery deepens as Hertfordshire braces for bit barn blitzApproval was last night granted for a mega datacenter in Hertfordshire, close to London's M25 orbital motorway, clearing the way for construction to begin. The identity of the eventual occupier, said to be a hyperscale operator, has yet to be disclosed.… |
WINE 10 is still not an emulator, but Windows apps won't know the difference - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 11:35:11 GMT)New double-digit vintage goes well with all sorts of thingsAfter 32 years of maturation, even now, WINE is Not an Emulator, but it can work alongside them to run Windows apps on Arm Linux.… |
First all-Indian chips to debut this year, 25 more local designs in the works - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 10:28:13 GMT)28nm and fatter processes first, says minister, as semiconductor supply chain players move to cash inIndia's ambition to become a semiconductor manufacturing player will bear fruit later this year with the debut of the first silicon designed and built in the nation.… |
User said he did nothing that explained his dead PC – does a new motherboard count? - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:32:11 GMT)Then suggested a bloke down the pub might be able to help fix itOn Call Friday brings the prospect of spending time with loved ones. But before we get there, The Register offers another instalment of On Call, the column that chronicles experiences from the global family of readers who have traumatic tech support tales to tell.… |
China and friends claim success in push to stamp out tech support cyber-scam slave camps - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 05:59:05 GMT)Paint a target on Myanmar, pledge more info-sharing to get the job doneA group established by six Asian nations to fight criminal cyber-scam slave camps that infest the region claims it’s made good progress dismantling the operations.… |
Court rules FISA Section 702 surveillance of US resident was unconstitutional - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 04:31:55 GMT)'Public interest alone does not justify warrantless querying' says judgeIt was revealed this week a court in New York made a landmark ruling that sided against the warrantless state surveillance of people's private communications in America.… |
Mental toll: Scale AI, Outlier sued by humans paid to steer AI away from our darkest depths - (pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:22:41 GMT)Who guards the guardrail makers? Not the bosses who hire them, it's allegedScale AI, which labels training data for machine-learning models, was sued this month, alongside labor platform Outlier, for allegedly failing to protect the mental health of contractors hired to protect people from harmful interactions with AI models.… |
One of Salt Typhoon's favorite flaws still wide open on 91% of at-risk Exchange Servers - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 23:30:11 GMT)But we mean, you've had nearly four years to patchOne of the critical security flaws exploited by China's Salt Typhoon to breach US telecom and government networks has had a patch available for nearly four years - yet despite repeated warnings from law enforcement and private-sector security firms, nearly all public-facing Microsoft Exchange Server instances with this vulnerability remain unpatched.… |
OpenAI's Operator agent wants to tackle your online chores – just don’t expect it to nail every task - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 21:26:23 GMT)Hello Operator? Can you give me number nine? Can I see you later? Will you give me back my dime?OpenAI on Thursday launched a human-directed AI agent called Operator that can use a web browser by itself to accomplish various online tasks, or at least try to do so.… |
Patch now: Cisco fixes critical 9.9-rated, make-me-admin bug in Meeting Management - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 21:00:08 GMT)No in-the-wild exploits … yetCisco has pushed a patch for a critical, 9.9-rated vulnerability in its Meeting Management tool that could allow a remote, authenticated attacker with low privileges to escalate to administrator on affected devices.… |
Intel pitches modular PC designs to make repairs less painful - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:16:06 GMT)x86 behemoth calls the approach 'innovative' - DIY builders may disagreeIntel claims a more modular approach to PC design could make systems easier to repair and reduce electronic waste – and it has some proposals for you.… |
Musk torches $500B Stargate AI plan, Altman strikes back - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 17:38:08 GMT)OpenAI boss tell world's richest man money is there to fund infrastructure projectUpdated The world has been treated to tech bros squabbling over Stargate, the alleged $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project led by OpenAI, while the grown-ups look on.… |
SonicWall flags critical bug likely exploited as zero-day, rolls out hotfix - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 16:36:20 GMT)Big organizations and governments are main users of these gatewaysSonicWall is warning customers of a critical vulnerability that was potentially already exploited as a zero-day.… |
Meta's pay-or-consent model under fire from EU consumer group - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:30:07 GMT)Company 'strongly disagrees' with law infringement allegationsMeta has again come under fire for its pay-or-consent model in the EU.… |
ChatGPT has a Thursday lie down - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:16:56 GMT)Generative AI needs a break, just like the rest of us, m'kay?OUTAGE Reactivate your brain. ChatGPT has gone down.… |
FortiGate config leaks: Victims' email addresses published online - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 14:45:06 GMT)Experts warn not to take leaks lightly as years-long compromises could remain undetectedThousands of email addresses included in the Belsen Group's dump of FortiGate configs last week are now available online, revealing which organizations may have been impacted by the 2022 zero-day exploits.… |
VMware users gripe over 3-year commitment to renew licenses - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 14:00:16 GMT)Chips and software giant Broadcom says it's 'flexible and open' on licensing terms, but customers disagreeVMware users continue to be unhappy with licensing changes since the virtualization giant was acquired by Broadcom, and are now complaining that they are being forced into three-year commitments when renewing vSphere licenses.… |
SK hynix wobbles on market uncertainty, despite record 2024 earnings - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:16:37 GMT)Shares slide at 'most profitable' company in Korea as world worries over geopoliticsMarket uncertainty and fears around trade protectionism are overshadowing SK hynix's latest earnings, with its shares sliding despite revenue doubling for the financial year just completed.… |
Why is Big Tech hellbent on making AI opt-out? - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 12:30:07 GMT)As Microsoft, Apple, and Google switch the tech on by default, what happened to asking for permission first?Opinion Copilot in Microsoft 365 and Apple Intelligence on iDevices are the latest examples of the tech industry's obsession with making services opt-out rather than opt-in.… |
Brit competition watchdog takes aim at Google, Apple's mobile ecosystems - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 12:13:30 GMT)CMA flexes its new Strategic Market Status musclesThe UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations into both Apple and Google, probing the duo's control of their respective mobile ecosystems.… |
OpenZFS 2.3 is here, with RAID expansion and faster dedup - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:05:28 GMT)Coming soon to April's TrueNAS SCALE release, dubbed 'Fangtooth'The latest version of OpenZFS offers RAID expansion, plus faster data deduplication donated by iXsystems. The code will be available very soon in the beta of TrueNAS SCALE 25.04.… |
Who is DDoSing you? Rivals, probably, or cheesed-off users - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 10:19:06 GMT)Plus: 'Largest-ever' duff traffic tsunami clocks in at 5.6 TbpsIn addition to Chinese spies invading organizations' networks and ransomware crews locking up sensitive files, botnets blasting distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks can still cause a world of hurt — and website downtime — and it's quite likely your competitors are to blame.… |
Biz tax rises, inflation and high interest. Why fewer UK tech firms started in 2024 - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:30:08 GMT)And the government thinks that AI and taking shackles off big tech will help? God help BritainFor the first time since the start of the pandemic, the number of tech firms incorporated in the UK has declined, with a shrinking economy, as well as high inflation and interest rates causing a slump in business confidence.… |
Tool touted as 'first AI software engineer' is bad at its job, testers claim - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 08:17:11 GMT)Nailed just 15% of assigned tasksA service described as "the first AI software engineer" appears to be rather bad at its job, based on a recent evaluation.… |
Asus lets processor security fix slip out early, AMD confirms patch in progress - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 07:19:08 GMT)Answers on a postcard to what 'Microcode Signature Verification Vulnerability' might meanAMD has confirmed at least some of its microprocessors suffer a microcode-related security vulnerability, the existence of which accidentally emerged this month after a fix for the flaw appeared in a beta BIOS update from PC maker Asus.… |
Beijing picking up some of the bill for iPhones sold in China - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 05:58:05 GMT)What? Why? Xi wants people spending, so has extended a subsidy scheme to phones, tabs, and smartwatchesIf you want a cheap iPhone, China’s the place to be right now thanks to a government subsidy scheme that means resellers are discounting the devices to make sure Beijing helps to pick up the bill.… |
Oracle emits 603 patches, names one it wants you to worry about soon - (pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 01:06:44 GMT)Old flaws that keep causing trouble haunt Big RedOracle has delivered its regular quarterly collection of patches: 603 in total, 318 for its own products, and another 285 for Linux code it ships.… |
LinkedIn accused of training AI on private messages - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 23:56:16 GMT)Microsoft's IG-for-suits insists lawsuit's claims are without meritLinkedIn was this week accused of giving third parties access to Premium customers' private InMail messages for AI model training.… |
Apple sued for using dangerous 'forever chemicals' in Watch bands - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 23:18:24 GMT)Markets smartwatches as health helpers even as they expose some owners to PFASApple has been sued for allegedly selling wristbands for its smartwatches that contain high levels of "forever chemicals" known as PFAS that may be linked to harmful health effects in humans.… |
Trump 'waved a white flag to Chinese hackers' as Homeland Security axed cyber advisory boards - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 21:30:10 GMT)And: America 'has never been less secure,' retired rear admiral tells CongressThe Trump administration gutted key cybersecurity advisory boards in its first days, as expert witnesses warned Congress of potentially destructive cyberattacks by China.… |
Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 20:45:14 GMT)The (good old) boys are back in townUS federal government contractors are no longer subject to anti-discrimination rules over hiring, training, and employment – after President Trump reached back 60 years to scrap an equal opportunity order signed by former President Lyndon B. Johnson.… |
Supply chain attack hits Chrome extensions, could expose millions - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 19:45:10 GMT)Threat actor exploited phishing and OAuth abuse to inject malicious codeCybersecurity outfit Sekoia is warning Chrome users of a supply chain attack targeting browser extension developers that has potentially impacted hundreds of thousands of individuals already.… |
Microsoft throws more cash at its carbon guilt by replanting Brazilian rainforest - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 19:00:14 GMT)Meanwhile, datacenter emissions continue to soarUpdated Microsoft is forking out for even more carbon credits to offset spiralling AI-fuelled carbon dioxide emissions from its datacenters.… |
Samsung Galaxy S25 is so smart it wears Crocs, allegedly resists quantum decryption - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 18:10:27 GMT)This year's model adds lots of AI, improved management, and support for biz buyersFirst fondle Samsung has announced the Galaxy S25, the latest version of its flagship smartphone range, and, as you'd expect, made new AI features the hero.… |
NASA spacewalkers to swab the ISS for microbial life - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 17:02:12 GMT)Learning how to deal with the microorganisms hitching a ride with humansTwo NASA astronauts are set to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) in search of signs of life.… |
Microsoft issues out-of-band fix for Windows Server 2022 NUMA glitch - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:17:07 GMT)Update addresses boot failures on multi-node systemsMicrosoft is releasing an out-of-band patch to deal with a problem that prevented some Windows Server 2022 machines from booting.… |
Silk Road's Dread Pirate Roberts walks free as Trump pardons dark web kingpin - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 15:30:11 GMT)Ross Ulbricht's family are now appealing for donations to support his reintegration into societySilk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is now a free man after US President Donald Trump made good on his promise to issue a federal pardon upon taking office.… |
Better power management, security, and scheduling in Linux kernel 6.13 - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:45:07 GMT)But no changes to bcachefsLinux kernel 6.13 is here, but don't get too excited. It's not a biggie and, given the timing, probably won't appear in many familiar distros.… |
Real datacenter emissions are a dirty secret - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:00:07 GMT)Amazon doesn't break out figures, but then again neither do Microsoft nor GoogleAs more businesses shift an ever greater number of workloads to the cloud, hyperscalers aren't doing enough to help CIOs or tech buyers, who are already under legislative pressure, to be more transparent about their own corporation's carbon footprint regarding compute services.… |
Infosec was literally the last item in Trump's policy plan, yet major changes are likely on his watch - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 13:15:11 GMT)Everyone agrees defense matters. How to do it is up for debateFeature The Trump administration came to office this week without a detailed information security policy, but analysis of cabinet nominees’ public remarks and expert comments suggest it will make significant changes in the field.… |
UK tax collector's phone service 'deliberately' bad to push users online, say MPs - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:50:26 GMT)Cut off nearly 44k peeps who had been waiting 70 minutes for advice on unavoidable choreThe UK tax collector must "take responsibility for its own failings to offer sufficiently effective digital services to customers," according to a committee of MPs which accused HMRC of "deliberately" poor phone service to push callers online.… |
Former Amazon exec appointed as boss of UK's competition watchdog - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:12:58 GMT)Interim appointment after former head booted out for not being 'sufficiently focused on growth'The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new chair after the sudden departure of the previous incumbent.… |
Business value from GenAI remains elusive despite IT spending boom - (pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 10:15:13 GMT)The nascent tech enters Hype Cycle’s downward slope, says GartnerTech analysts have forecast 9.8 percent year-over-year growth in worldwide IT spending in 2025, reaching $5.61 trillion and driven by continuing AI investments, despite “moonshot” projects seeing a high failure rate.… |