The Register

Power user excavates evidence of experimental 'Cowriter' feature Windows Notepad is set to be the next recipient of Microsoft's AI attentions judging by screenshots posted by a Windows Insider user....

Cuts are a continuation of late-2023 redundancies to help teams better 'align their resources' The 2024 layoff season appears to have only begun, with Google cutting hundreds of employees across multiple divisions yesterday....

Scores are on the doors for Q4, as after 2 years shipments grow again... by 0.3% The PC industry has ended a two-year run of declining shipments, by growing 0.3 percent in Q4 of 2023, amid a warning that the cost of components will rise this year, as will the cost of laptops and desktops....

Interest in Japanese's firm's public sector deals - worth $15B in the UK alone since 2012 - spikes Analysis Since the broadcast of a television drama telling the story of the Post Office Horizon scandal - one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in British legal history - calls have mounted for those responsible to be held to account....

Study of workplace blabbermouths reveals the consequences If you're the type of office blabbermouth who loves to stand at the water cooler and tell anyone who'll listen that Pete in accounts has bad breath, or John and Jill in tech are sleeping together, don't expect a promotion anytime soon....

Discovery could have implications for the field of forensics The belief that all fingerprints are unique is so well accepted that crime novels and TV shows riff on it. Recent AI research has challenged this notion, at least regarding the fingerprints on different fingers of the same person....

Essential tool for PC troubleshooting, even if you never run anything but Windows The revival in development of open source RAM-testing tool Memtest86+ continues with version 7.0 - and it's not just for Linuxy types....

Budget, schmudget, when it comes to AI-enabled productivity gains, says exec Any dangers associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI) can easily be countered through action, similarly to how humans resolved the depletion of the ozone layer, according to namesake and founder of Dell Technologies Inc, Michael Dell....

Developers are not alone in losing track of which platform to back Microsoft has a very long history, but the company's attention span seems to be shrinking, which is making it difficult to decide which products have a future and which might be shot behind the shed....

Just keep the cold clammy hand of Fujitsu away from it Japan's government scientific research institute Riken is hedging its bets on quantum computing with the deployment of Quantinuum's trapped-ion H1 systems at its facility in Wako, Saitama....

We've heard of bored penpushers hallucinating at their desks, but this is something else Pennsylvania has signed up for a ChatGPT Enterprise plan, allowing the commonwealth's government employees to use OpenAI's generative artificial intelligence to complete day-to-day tasks, or so Governor Josh Shapiro hopes....

Happy New Year! Last year's tech layoff spree isn't over, with live-streaming site Twitch announcing today that it's laying off 500 employees, around a third of its staff. The biz isn't alone in letting people go....

Enterprise software giant claims it has cut ties with bad apples Enterprise software giant SAP has agreed to pay at least $220 million to settle bribery charges brought by the US Justice Department (DOJ), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)....

It's still not calling it ransomware Fidelity National Financial now says criminals got hold of data belonging to 1.3 million customers after breaking into its IT network in November....

And pinky swear there's no copyright-infringing material Developers must disclose all AI-generated art, code, or music used in their games for Steam to review before their titles can be publicly released via the software souk....

$ gig revert HEAD && gig commit -e 'Biden was here' The US Department of Labor (DOL) on Tuesday issued a rule for determining at what point workers should be classified as employees or independent contractors under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act....

Expect new rules in upcoming weeks US hospitals will be required to meet basic cybersecurity standards before receiving federal funding, according to rules the White House is expected to propose in the next few weeks....

Today us vultures are debating bans on ransom payments, deplorable tactics by extortionists, and more Kettle Believe us, we wish there was a simple solution that could stop ransomware dead in its tracks for good....

It's about time someone figured out how to make swappable bits for EV skateboards CES Korean automaker Kia has returned to CES after a five-year absence to unveil an eagerly anticipated electric vehicle concept: Modular vehicles that can be kitted out to fit various purposes....

US Space Force harnesses Azure cloudy computing for orbital training The US Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC) has signed a deal with Microsoft to create an "Immersive Intelligent Environment" augmented reality space simulation....

'How can they cancel a major program affecting hundreds, perhaps thousands of customers, with zero notice?' Exclusive Broadcom is tossing the majority of VMware's Cloud Services Providers as part of its shakeup of the virtualization titan's partner programs, say sources, leaving customers unclear who their IT supplier will be....

Posing as cyber samaritans, scumbags are kicking folks when they're down Ransomware victims already reeling from potential biz disruption and the cost of resolving the matter are now being subjected to follow-on extortion attempts by criminals posing as helpful security researchers....

What a cowboy! More used to farming data via his social media empire, Mark Zuckerberg is expanding his horizons to raise cattle at his Ko'olau Ranch in Hawaii - the one where he's also preparing for the end of the world....

Fans of the tech dinosaur have a few months to fill their drives with software Bad news for OS/2 fans: the Hobbes OS/2 software archive is to be shuttered once and for all in April....

Sebastien Raoult developed various credential-harvesting websites over more than 2 years A key member of the ShinyHunters cybercrime group is facing three years in the slammer and being forced to return $5 million in criminal proceeds....

Magnetosheath jets found around Earth may be present on other planets after Jupiter discovery Researchers, after discovering magnetosheath jets around Jupiter, now believe these phenomena may exist on all solar system planets....

New moves follow year where customers complained it broke their trust Global ERP giant SAP has announced two changes to its executive board in order to spur its quest to shift customers to the cloud....

Streamlines from 3 product groups to 2 as Automotive chief leaves the building Euro chipmaker STMicroelectronics is reorganizing into two product groups, down from three, saying it wants to boost efficiency and get closer to customers in a decision that will also cut overhead....

Farewell IA64, hello snapshots and Rusty refinements The latest stable Linux kernel, 6.7, is out and finally includes the new next-gen copy-on-write (COW) bcachefs file system....

Roll up, roll up. See Ouroboros-3 eating its own fuselage Interview The concept of a self-eating rocket is rearing its head once again as engineers showcase their work at the AIAA SciTech Forum....

AI can't cite cases, fully grok the law, or reason about it effectively study finds Interview Top large language models tend to generate inaccurate legal information and should not be relied upon for litigation, according to new research....

Singular alleges AI accelerators built from ripped-off blueprints Allegations that Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) were developed using stolen designs are being put to the test as a jury trial brought against the search giant by Singular Computing kicks off this week....

No human will set foot on Moon for 2+years now NASA's Moon mission launch dates have slid by about a year - Artemis II to September 2025 and Artemis III to September 2026. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains scheduled for September 2028....

Jansen can let someone else worry about nationwide fiber rollout now UK telco giant BT is confirming a start date for Allison Kirkby, who will become its chief executive on February 1, facing down the challenge of the company's nationwide fiber rollout and trying to reverse its declining share price....

Minister says Fujitsu could be 'on the hook' for compensation pending inquiry Former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells, at the center of a media storm in recent days, is returning her CBE* following multiple calls for her to be stripped of the title....

That's going to be a recurring question in 2024 Luma, a generative AI startup building software that transforms text descriptions to corresponding 3D models, just raised $43 million (34 million) in a series-B funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, Nvidia, and others....

Gulp! The average store-bought bottle of water contains somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 100 times more minute plastic particles than previously believed, judging from a study published this week....

From whom, exactly, we wonder As America gears up for a contentious presidential election this year, the Department of Justice has launched a campaign to convince the public that each and every qualified vote will be counted, and there won't be any interference or shenanigans to worry about....

Low-code gubbins may not be able to count on much platform protection OpenAI's GPT Store, expected to launch Wednesday - has been hyped as a replay of the Apple App Store gold rush of 2008....

Monopoly watchdogs permitting Hewlett Packard Enterprise officially announced Tuesday its intent to acquire Juniper Networks in a deal valued at $40 per share, or roughly $14 billion....

Ex-Twitter isn't exactly rolling in cash - has anyone thought about how much it'll cost to run all that new stuff? Peer-to-peer payments, AI integration, additional exposure to stuff you hate, and more: That's what's apparently coming to the site formerly known as Twitter in 2024....

Nothing under exploit... The calm before the storm? Patch Tuesday Microsoft rang in the New Year with a relatively calm Patch Tuesday: Just 49 Windows security updates including fixes for two critical-rated bugs, plus four high-severity Chrome flaws in Microsoft Edge....

Buy the hype, sell the, wait, what do we do now?! Updated The SEC today said its Twitter account was hijacked to wrongly claim it had approved a bunch of hotly anticipated Bitcoin ETFs, causing the cryptocurrency to spike and then slip in price....

Redmond's three Es strike again: Embrace, Extend... EU Microsoft's $13 billion investment in OpenAI is being checked by the European Commission to see if the deal runs afoul of the continent's merger rules....

UK trumpets British tech aboard doomed spacecraft The Peregrine Mission One lunar lander has just hours of power left before its ambitious mission will be prematurely terminated....

On the wrong side of the digital divide in America? The clock is ticking The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) warns it will start winding down the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) unless more funds are released to keep it going....

Petty officer Wenheng Zhao admitted to taking as many as 14 payoffs in return for non-public military information A US Naval sailor will face more than two years behind bars after pleading guilty to taking bribes from Chinese spies in exchange for sensitive military information....

C-suite exec gets 223 staffers' worth of pay after cyclical headwinds dampen consumer demand for kit Qualcomm might have had a relatively rough ride in 2023 given the continued decline in smartphone chip shipments across the industry but its execs didn't, at least not in terms of their pay awards....

Someone please remind Boeing how to build airplanes ... again Both US operators of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft are finding loose parts in the aircraft during the latest inspections that were prompted by an emergency exit door plug blowout during flight over the weekend....

Fancy a Windows laptop that's also an Android tablet or a mouse and keyboard powered by kinetic energy and solar CES Where can you find a voice-controlled luxury toilet seat and a transparent television set? The annual CES show, of course, where the world's tech companies and others gather to show off the products they hope will catch the interest of buyers....