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Updated 2025-09-20 03:00
Anarchy in the AI: Trump's desire to supercharge US tech faces plenty of hurdles
Rotten is as Rotten does Opinion It's 1976, and in the country of the Beatles, another guitar band is giving it some. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols isn't so keen on love and blackbirds. Instead, he sings lustily that he wants to be an anarchist, destroying passers-by and in general promoting anarchy in the UK....
Intel ghosts researcher who found web apps spilled 270K staff records
Chipzilla quietly fixed the problems without responding to the person who found them Security boffin Eaton Zveare has highlighted some serious holes in the online infrastructure of chip giant Intel - walking through services with coding flaws to gain access to supposedly internal documentation, from non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to the personal details of more than 270,000 Intel staffers....
McDonald's not lovin' it when hacker exposes nuggets of rotten security
Burger slinger gets a McRibbing, reacts by firing staffer who helped A white-hat hacker has discovered a series of critical flaws in McDonald's staff and partner portals that allowed anyone to order free food online, get admin rights to the burger slinger's marketing materials, and could allow an attacker to get a corporate email account with which to conduct a little filet-o-phishing....
Open the pod bay door, GPT-4o
Researchers use LLM in 'AI Space Cortex' to automate robotic extraterrestrial exploration Businesses may be struggling to find meaningful ways to use artificial intelligence software, but space scientists at least have a few ideas about how to deploy AI models....
KPMG wrote 100-page prompt to build agentic TaxBot
Produces advice in a single day instead of two weeks - without job losses The Australian arm of consultancy firm KPMG wrote a 100-page prompt to create an agentic system that prepares tax advice far faster than humans....
AWS still cares enough about Intel to order up a fresh batch of custom Xeons
Memory bandwidth boost appears to be the secret sauce in chips used for new memory optimized instance types Amazon Web Services has revealed it's started running some custom cuts of Intel's Xeon 6 processors....
Top AWS chip designer reportedly defects to Arm as it weighs push into silicon
Rami Sinno led Trainium and Inferentia development at Amazon British chip designer Arm Holdings has reportedly recruited one of Amazon Web Services' top chip engineers....
Don't want drive-by Ollama attackers snooping on your local chats? Patch now
Reconfigure local app settings via a 'simple' POST request A now-patched flaw in popular AI model runner Ollama allows drive-by attacks in which a miscreant uses a malicious website to remotely target people's personal computers, spy on their local chats, and even control the models the victim's app talks to, in extreme cases by serving poisoned models....
Like burglars closing a door, Apache ActiveMQ attackers patch critical vuln after breaking in
Intruders hoped no one would notice their presence Criminals exploiting a critical vulnerability in open source Apache ActiveMQ middleware are fixing the flaw that allowed them access, after establishing persistence on Linux servers....
Vision AI models see optical illusions when none exist
When is a duck not also a rabbit? When it's a canard Vision language models exhibit a form of self-delusion that echoes human psychology - they see patterns that aren't there....
Latest Windows 11 insider builds hide secret File Explorer dark mode
Don't be afraid of the dark HANDS ON Even when you have dark mode enabled in Windows 11, some important dialog boxes stay white. But that could be changing, if a new, hidden beta feature becomes widely available....
To heck with export controls! Nvidia reportedly plotting cut-down B300 for Chinese market
It's that or a replacement for its aging H200 NVL PCIe cards Nvidia is reportedly prepping a new Blackwell-based GPU for the Chinese market that'll outperform its controversial H20 accelerators....
How low can colo go, asks JLL, as datacenter vacancy rates near zero
$1 trillion of new deployment needed by 2030 Colocation capacity in North American datacenters has dropped to a record low, with much of the construction pipeline already pre-leased, making this a key brake on growth. Keeping up with demand could take as much as $1 trillion in fresh datacenter builds before the decade is out....
Python survey shows growth even as Foundation funding falters
But 3.13 adoption lags as most devs stick with earlier releases The Python Software Foundation (PSF), in association with tools vendor JetBrains, has published the eighth Python Developer Survey, with more than 30,000 contributors, making it the biggest yet....
NASA starts bolting together Artemis III rocket for 2027 Moon shot
Funding fights and Starship stumbles could still bring it back down to Earth NASA has begun assembling the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will send humans on a lunar landing mission in 2027....
Uncle Sam asks industry if it has AI that'll make procurement suck less
Plan includes chatbots 'with full user context and data access' - what could go wrong? US government buyers have been busy getting AI into the hands of federal agencies, and now they're taking a moment to ask the industry how some of that AI magic could work for them....
Casino tech outfit Bragg cops to intrusion but says data jackpot untouched
Toronto company says weekend cyber raid hit internal IT, not punters' wallets Canadian casino software slinger Bragg Gaming Group has disclosed a "cybersecurity incident," though it's adamant the intruders never got their hands on customer data....
PinePhone Pro canned in pursuit of RISC-V business
Unexpected news from Pine64, but there are other goodies to compensate Pine64 is moving from Arm kit to RISC-V. As a result, its higher-end open smartphones is for the chop - but not the lower-end model....
End well, this won't: UK commissioner suggests govt stops kids from using VPNs
Dame Rachel de Souza says under-18s are laughing off the Online Safety Act's age blocks England's children's commissioner has urged the government to shut down one of the most obvious loopholes in its new age-blocking regime: kids firing up a VPN....
Grow a new Arm: UK advisory body wants investment in local AI chips
Report recommends that the UK become a leader in chip design The British government's advisory body on science and technology thinks the country could be a world leader in designing AI chips, if it could just get the right investment and skills in place....
August update leaves Windows reset and recovery dead in the water
Want to pass on that old PC? Perhaps wait until out-of-band patch arrives Microsoft has broken the Windows reset and recovery functionality so badly, it must push an out-of-band update....
Commodore Amiga turns 40, headlines UK exhibition
500, 600, 1200, 2000... what's your number? Hands on The Commodore Amiga turned 40 this year, and the event has been marked by The National Museum Of Computing in the UK with a hands-on exhibition of models from the archives....
US spy chief claims UK backed down over Apple backdoor demand
Tulsi Gabbard boasts Washington forced Blighty to drop iPhone encryption fight The UK government has reportedly abandoned its attempt to strong-arm Apple into weakening iPhone encryption after the White House forced Blighty into a quiet climb-down....
More customers asking for Google's Data Boundary, says Cloud Experience boss
Developer demand for sovereign cloud from tech giant is on the rise, says exec Interview Google's President of Customer Experience, Hayete Gallot, offered some words of comfort to developers who are looking nervously at the rise of AI assistants while also laying out her vision for cloud sovereignty....
Softbank bets $2 billion on Intel having a future
Takes two percent stake as rumours swirl Uncle Sam could do something similar Japanese tech investment concern SoftBank has made a $2 billion investment in Intel....
Browser wars are back, predicts Palo Alto, thanks to AI
CEO says if you buy all your infosec stuff from him, life under assault from bots will be less painful Brace for a new round of browser wars, according to Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora....
China sends an AI to its space station, where Taikonauts use it to prep for spacewalk
Single spacesuit now worn 20 times Taikonauts aboard China's Tiangong space station used an AI model to prepare for a spacewalk....
Molten salt nuclear reactors slated to power Google datacenters in 2030
More than 60 years after first demos of this tech, Kairos will bring it back to Oak Ridge Oak Ridge, Tennessee, could be home to a molten salt reactor once again if Google-backed Kairos Power has its way....
Facial recognition works better in the lab than on the street, researchers show
High accuracy scores come from conditions that don't reflect real-world usage Facial recognition technology has been deployed publicly on the basis of benchmark tests that reflect performance in laboratory settings, but some academics are saying that real-world performance doesn't match up....
Microsoft crams Copilot AI directly into Excel cells
Meet the new COPILOT function Microsoft, in its ongoing effort to AI-ify every product it has, is now adding it right into the cells of Excel. Available on Monday to beta users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new COPILOT function allows you to task Redmond's AI with performing generative tasks right in, for example, C2 or B23....
Physicist models new use for nuclear waste: Turning it into super-rare fusion fuel
Got a particle accelerator? Here's your tritium startup idea Tritium is ridiculously rare, incredibly expensive, and central to most fusion energy reactor designs. If research out of Los Alamos National Lab proves to hold true, it might soon become easier to obtain....
Pot calls kettle black as China dubs US 'surveillance empire' over chip tracking
Spy vs spy in the chips Comment Chinese state media called the US an aspiring "surveillance empire" over its proposed use of asset tracking tags to crack down on black-market GPU shipments to the Middle Kingdom....
GenAI FOMO has spurred businesses to light nearly $40 billion on fire
MIT NANDA study finds only 5 percent of organizations using AI tools in production at scale US companies have invested between $35 and $40 billion in Generative AI initiatives and, so far, have almost nothing to show for it....
List or get off the pot: Auditors demand gov’t improve IT reporting or give it up
A plan to standardize IT record keeping is incomplete after 8 years, and the GAO wants someone to act The US federal government first planned to standardize its categorization of IT costs, resources, and solutions back in 2017. Eight years later, the project has mostly stalled, say auditors, and now they're demanding that it either get priority or get the axe....
AWS pricing for Kiro dev tool dubbed 'a wallet-wrecking tragedy'
Surprise - updated plans way more expensive than initially suggested AWS has introduced new pricing for Kiro, its AI-driven coding tool, but unlike the pricing originally announced, the latest plans are "a wallet-wrecking tragedy," according to many of its users....
Microsoft's Nuance coughs up $8.5M to rid itself of MOVEit breach suit
Supply chain breach has been a major target of legal action Microsoft-owned talk-to-text outfit Nuance has agreed to cough up $8.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit over the sprawling MOVEit Transfer mega-breach - although it admits no liability....
Everybody needs good neighbors – especially ones who sell you solar energy
P2P power networks beat stingy feed-in tariffs for Aussie households, study finds Boffins looking into the Australian solar energy ecosystem say that sharing really is caring - and potentially profitable when homes with solar panels can sell their excess energy to neighbors at a preferential rate....
Workday warns of CRM breach after social engineers make off with business contact details
HR SaaS giant insists core systems untouched Workday has admitted that attackers gained access to one of its third-party CRM platforms, but insists its core systems and customer tenants are untouched....
SpaceX prepares itself for a tenth Starship flight test
If at first you succeed, keep trying until you don't SpaceX is gearing up for another Starship launch, blaming a previous failure on structural issues and fuel pressurization problems....
UK drafts AI to help Joe Public decipher its own baffling bureaucracy
Virtual agents to guide citizens through red tape - but not remove any of it The UK government has leapt into the AI hype with a raft of "Exemplar" programs it claims will deliver billions in value - including a Clippy-style assistant to help citizens navigate complex forms and legal jargon, rather than simply making them clearer in the first place....
From PAYE to P45: HMRC staff fired for prying into taxpayer data
Agency swears breaches are rare, just not rare enough to stop 186 being binned for sticky fingers The UK tax authority has been forced to clean house after dozens of staff were caught helping themselves to taxpayer records....
Boffins say tool can sniff 5G traffic, launch 'attacks' without using rogue base stations
Sni5Gect research crew targets sweet spot during device / network handshake pause Security boffins have released an open source tool for poking holes in 5G mobile networks, claiming it can do up- and downlink sniffing and a novel connection downgrade attack - plus "other serious exploits" they're keeping under wraps, for now....
Every question you ask, every comment you make, I'll be recording you
When you're asking AI chatbots for answers, they're data-mining you Opinion Recently, OpenAI ChatGPT users were shocked - shocked, I tell you! - to discover that their searches were appearing in Google search. You morons! What do you think AI chatbots are doing? Doing all your homework for free or a mere $20 a month? I think not!...
A Linux alternative? Debian/Hurd shows microkernel Unix dream is alive
The official GNU microkernel is still breathing - and now it's 64-bit Before Linux, GNU was working on its own Mach-based Unix compatible OS. Now, in the footsteps of Debian 13, there is a new release....
Generative AI isn't just a matter of life and death. It's far more important than that
Visions of immortality are uniformly dull. But this is gonna get ugly Opinion Real versus virtual. Stolen versus synthesized. Generative AI is blurring the lines we used to think we could read between. Now, it's getting its teeth into life versus death....
Teen interns brute-forced a disk install, with predictable results
The real lesson here is how little some companies care about training Who, Me? Welcome to Monday and another instalment of Who, Me? It's The Register's reader-contributed column in which you admit to mistakes and reveal if they derailed your career....
Someone's poking the bear with infostealers targeting Russian crypto developers
If you wanted to hurt Putin's ransomware racketeers, these info-stealing npm packages are one way to do it Researchers at software supply chain security outfit Safety think they've found malware that targets Russian cryptocurrency developers, and perhaps therefore Russia's state-linked ransomware crews...
In Otter news, transcription app accused of illegally recording users’ voices
Vidchat hosts probably know Otter.ai records everything and feeds it into AI. Their guests may not Voice transcription service Otter.ai has found itself on the wrong end of a lawsuit that claims it trains its speech recognition tech without securing permission to do so....
India's PM laments missing out on global chipmaking dominance – in 1964!
Prime Minister promises first local silicon will appear this year, decades after Fairchild Semi's Robert Noyce made polite inquiries Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has celebrated the nation's independence day by pointing out that the nation is finally becoming a global chipmaking contender - 60 years after blowing the chance to be a global leader....
Google admits anticompetitive conduct in Australia, agrees to modest fine
PLUS: Philippines bans gambling payments; Indonesia warns Roblox; China lures young scientists; And more! Asia In Brief Google on Monday admitted to anticompetitive conduct in its dealings with Australian telcos....
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