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They're back - and more oblivious than ever Comment If you've paid any attention to social media in the past four days, it's likely you haven't been able to escape the torrent of photos and videos of people wearing Apple's new $3,499 headset in public, tapping away at empty space in front of them, rudely waving at cars, or sporting a pair while driving a Tesla....

Fancy a mainframe that runs Linux? You'll need deep pockets IBM has pushed out a new member of its LinuxONE enterprise-grade Linux lineup that it hopes will appeal to small and medium-sized businesses, but the price tag is unlikely to recommend it to many buyers in this market....

Attack happened in 2023 using a bespoke backdoor, confirming year-old suspicions Dutch authorities are lifting the curtain on an attempted cyberattack last year at its Ministry of Defense (MoD), blaming Chinese state-sponsored attackers for the espionage-focused intrusion....

Despite EV commitment, German giant tells Musk marque to buzz off German software giant SAP has reportedly elected not to buy new electric cars from Tesla, the EV manufacturer led by Elon Musk....

Still no word on how the intruders broke in or the full extent of any possible data compromise Global securities finance tech company EquiLend's systems are now back online after announcing a disruptive ransomware attack nearly two weeks ago....

Everything's fine, but a fastening fell off when it shouldn't have Virgin Galactic has reported itself to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after discovering a detached alignment pin from the mechanism used to keep its suborbital spaceplane attached to the mothership aircraft....

Pair still looking to merge after SK hynix blocked deal Japan is set to provide more subsidies for chip companies Kioxia and Western Digital to boost memory production. The move follows reports that a cancelled merger between the two could be on again....

Admins should get a move on while info is scarce and exploits aren't yet available Fortinet's FortiSIEM product is vulnerable to two new maximum-severity security vulnerabilities that allow for remote code execution....

More changes required in wake of ERP go-live that left staff and suppliers waiting for payment Scotland's University of Edinburgh has awarded systems integrator and support company Inoapps an additional 3.6 million ($4.5 million) contract fee for "changes in requirements and additional work" following a troubled implementation of Oracle that left staff and suppliers paid late....

Company burned through $61.6M in investment Former cloud native darling Weaveworks has announced that it is closing its doors after failing to get acquired and suffering from a "volatile" cash position....

'Noble Numbat' users will face a major post-install upgrade, which isn't ideal The next major release of KDE Plasma is getting close, but not close enough for the next major Ubuntu release....

How good are your takedowns when fresh gangs are linked to previous ops, though? At least 25 new ransomware gangs emerged in 2023, with Akira and 8Base proving the most "successful," research reveals....

Provisional deal will mean companies cannot 'hinder repair' The European Parliament has reached a provisional deal on EU regulations to strengthen consumers' right to repair....

'We have it! Let's use it' proclaims the most warlike GPT-4-Base When high school student David Lightman inadvertently dials into a military mainframe in the 1983 movie WarGames, he invites the supercomputer to play a game called "Global Thermonuclear Warfare." Spoiler: This turns out not to be a very good idea....

The Future Circular Collider, if built, will be three times the size of the LHC CERN wants to build a next-generation particle accelerator that could cost up to 20 billion....

Just in time to cash in on VMware and Citrix uncertainty Microsoft has announced that its Azure Virtual Desktop offering is available on-prem....

What a surprise, said no one Samsung chairman Lee Jae-yong was acquitted of stock manipulation charges related to a 2015 company merger in Seoul Central District Court on Monday....

Australia's Appen boasted of clients including Amazon and Microsoft. Then work dried up, Gen AI arrived, and Google bailed AI is so hot right now, and assumed to be the future of everything. But troubles at an Australian AI developer show the field is not all sunshine and roses....

The stakes are high because the disputed items - photoresists - are essential for EUV lithography The Research Foundation for the State University of New York (SUNY RF) is suing a subsidiary of Japan's JSR Corporation over claims that photoresist materials developed by the foundation were commercialized and patented illegally....

Except for the data used for a controversial murder investigation. That stays. Forever Singapore's government announced on Monday it had deleted almost all the personal data collected from its COVID tracking systems - TraceTogether (TT) and SafeEntry (SE) - as of February 1. Almost....

Chocolate Factory matches Microsoft money for memory safety Google on Monday donated $1 million to the Rust Foundation specifically to improve interoperability between the language and C++....

Creeps on notorious bulletin board 4Chan reportedly decided to humiliate prominent women The viral lewd deepfake images of popstar Taylor Swift reportedly stemmed from an online competition on 4chan, challenging contestants to break AI software content filters....

At this point you might be better off just shutting the stuff down Various miscreants are attempting to exploit the latest Ivanti flaw, a server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-21893 that can be used to hijack equipment....

The melding of Neoverse cores and x86 giant's latest process tech was bound to happen eventually Intel Foundry Services (IFS) has found a customer in Faraday Technology, which plans to fab its Arm Neoverse-based processors using the x86 giant's 18A process tech....

What is on HHS paper will most likely become law, Google security boss says Interview If you are responsible for infosec at a US hospital or other healthcare organization, and you treat the government's new "voluntary" cybersecurity performance goals (CPGs) as, well, voluntary, you're ignoring the writing on the wall....

Supplier to beleagered US aerospace giant spots problem, which would not be an 'immediate flight safety issue' US aerospace giant Boeing is set to delay the deliveries of nearly 50 of its popular 737 Max aircraft after a supplier discovered a series of incorrectly drilled rivet holes....

Horse, meet stable door AnyDesk has copped to an IT security "incident" in which criminals broke into the remote-desktop software maker's production systems. The biz has told customers to expect disruption as it attempts to lock down its infrastructure....

Our survey shows you like your away-from-office comforts Every week we run a reader survey at the bottom of articles and the results for last week's question on home working made for interesting reading....

Buy 'em, rent 'em, smuggle 'em - export restrictions don't cover illegitimate means US trade restrictions have made it harder for Chinese companies and government agencies to get their hands on advanced semiconductor technologies, but apparently not impossible....

Look Ma: no tether! It is 40 years since the iconic image of Bruce McCandless II, floating free and untethered above the Earth while testing out the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), was snapped from the Space Shuttle Challenger....

It isn't just the price that makes your eyes look so weird Tech repair champ iFixit has disassembled Apple's newly released Vision Pro headset and came up with an explanation for why the EyeSight display looks so weird....

It's the second Chicago hospital to disclose a major incident in the same week For the second time in one week, cybercriminals have targeted a Chicago children's hospital, this time causing significant operational disruption....

Five months after cloud love-in, critics worry about costs of deploying Oracle hardware and DBs in Microsoft's cloud As the dust settles on Microsoft's decision to house Oracle hardware in its datacenters, experts keeping a close eye on Big Red's commercials are warning customers to tread carefully when choosing the transition....

Shares in French IT giant plummet 25% Ailing tech integrator Atos is in talks with creditors on refinancing options for debt following the cancellation of its 720 million ($774 million) rights issue and ongoing uncertainty over efforts to split the company to secure its future....

Plus: Another lawyer is in trouble for citing fake cases hallucinated by ChatGPT, and more AI In Brief More than half of undergraduates in the UK are using AI to complete their assignments, according to a study conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute....

You were warned AWS could rake in between $400 million and $1 billion a year from charging customers for public IPv4 addresses while migration to IPv6 remains slow....

CEO Peter Beck on the future of commercial launches and not raining debris over national reserves Interview Rocket Lab is a relatively small player in a launcher marketplace dominated by governments and billionaires. However, despite some notable anomalies, the company is starting 2024 with a packed schedule and grand plans for the future....

After car-crash implementation, Birmingham City Council must weigh up options after current problems are fixed Auditors of Europe's largest local government body say it's time to decide whether to grind on with a rollout of Oracle - an ERP project set to be five times over-budget and which has shattered the council's financial reporting - or choose another system....

The one thing you don't want your data security to be is, er, edgy Opinion Are you a Windows user? How many spoons do you own? Have you counted them lately? The reason we ask is due to the old adage, "the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." When it comes to the tech giants, they like to talk about their commitment to data security a whole lot, but by Jiminy they like rifling through your cutlery drawer while they're doing it....

What is it? It's an instrument used to train pilots, but that's not important right now who, me? Welcome once again, gentle reader, to another instalment of Who, Me? - the Monday missive in which Reg readers share stories of occasions on which their prowess didn't quite meet tech repair challenges....

Chap in charge hopes the Internet Archive is willing to pipe in historical search results as a substitute Google has stopped offering links to cached versions of web pages alongside search results....

Recordings of past vidchats suspected as source of fakery - so there's another class of data you need to lock down A Hong Kong-based finance professional at a multinational was reportedly swindled out of $25 million (HK$200 million) of company money when scammers created a deepfake of his London-based chief financial officer in a video conference call....

Paytm's bank has been locked out, edtech darling Byju's faces bankruptcy Two of India's tech leaders, both of which have been widely hailed as exemplars of local entrepreneurialism, are in deep trouble....

PLUS: more glibc vulns discovered; DraftKings hacker sentenced; and a hefty dose of critical vulnerabilities Infosec In Brief The recent indictment of a massive SIM-swapping ring may mean convicted crypto conman Sam Bankman-Fried is innocent of at least one allegation still hanging over his head: The theft of more than $400 million in crypto hacked from wallets belonging to his crypto firm, FTX, just before it declared bankruptcy....

PLUS: TikTok returns to Indonesian e-commerce; Chinese giants' EV battery swap scheme; India drops mobile tariffs APAC in Brief The eleven-nation ASEAN bloc has decided to create a regional network of submarine cables, and to push for interoperability of member governments' digital infrastructure....

Is there anything more terrifying than a 'smart' HR chatbot? Well, OK, yes, but ... Kettle This ongoing generative AI assistant hype-cycle already feels like it's been going on for a decade, with Big Tech pouring billions into systems that simultaneously are supposed to take away our jobs and enhance our working day....

Fans of the spec bemoan lack of transparency in Interop 2024 process Browser makers Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, alongside two software consultancies, celebrated a moment of unity and common purpose on Thursday with the announcement of Interop 2024, a project to promote web browser interoperability....

The closest thing we may ever get to a real-life Die Hard 2 scenario Criminals could remotely tamper with the data that apps used by airplane pilots rely on to inform safe takeoff and landing procedures, according to fresh research....

Remote work option will still be offered - but at the cost of career advancement Exclusive On Monday Dell is expected to send a "Return To Office" notification to all employees, a source familiar with the matter has told The Register....

So that's where all the laid-off semiconductor engineers went! After years of development, Meta may finally roll out its homegrown AI accelerators in a meaningful way this year....