The Register

And commercial operators, with NASA a keen customer The US government has published a strategy for low-Earth orbit research and development, anticipating a transition from the International Space Station (ISS) to the use of private sector successors and investigating approaches to address the threat of orbital debris.…

Germany alleges systemic moderation failure, more vendors sue over unpaid bills, and a new WARN Act suit Twitter is facing a trio of legal challenges this week: German officials are going after the platform for not adequately handling user complaints, four vendors sued over unpaid bills, and another group of laid-off employees claim they were terminated without proper notice.…

Doug Beck definitely won't be transforming the US military into the iArmy, right? The US Defense Department is getting a shiny new director for its Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in the shape of Apple exec Doug Beck.…

Fewer newly funded startups too, according to report Global private investment and the number of AI startups decreased in 2022, while the industry's adoption of the technology has plateaued compared to previous years, according to new data.…

Prime real estate in England's capital after making 10,000 job cuts? Not a good look Microsoft has called off the search for a swanky 500,000 sq ft office in the heart of England's capital amid a cost-cutting drive that has seen thousands of employees forced out.…

As much as 80% in the hands of three companies – you can guess which UK communications regulator Ofcom is to refer the domestic cloud market to the government's competition watchdog over concerns that dominance by the big players may be limiting competition.…

Though he never said he went through with the idea to 'make a scrapbook' How does Sundar Pichai – Google CEO, engineer, dreamweaver – think users could squeeze the most out of the company's Bard "experiment"? Well, he asked the AI chatbot to come up with ideas for his father's 80th birthday party.…

Delays to OECD plan means interim fix could be found wanting Britain's parliamentary spending watchdog has warned that tech giants are set to "circumvent" the government's digital tax regime despite what appeared to be a successful introduction.…

And you wouldn't want that ... would you? Microsoft is updating a service introduced last year that shifts the responsibility of patching Windows devices from IT admins to the vendor itself.…

That means more space and less energy consumption Big iron is not always beautiful. Just ask IBM, which has updated its z16 mainframe and lifted the covers off a shiny new LinuxONE 4, both of which are built for rack mount and single frame configurations.…

Hardware biz trying to compete with cloud giants, wants to rid customers of data silos, reduce cost and complexity HPE is adding storage services to its cloud-like GreenLake subscription-based tech platform, powered by a disaggregated hardware architecture that it says is built to scale up to exabyte capacities if required.…

German-speaking heartlands fear they'll be paying again for features they've already built SAP is angering users in its German-speaking heartland as its push to migrate vital ERP systems to the cloud is hampered by confusion over the tools used to develop and manage systems in the new environment.…

Draganfly aims to help clear Ukraine's deadly harvest With the drone war in Ukraine In late April, representatives of Canada-based industrial drone firm Draganfly are scheduled to demonstrate how the company's Commander 3 XL drone can be used to map the location of landmines in Ukraine.…

Operation Cookie Monster crumbles stolen data-as-a-service vendor A notorious source of stolen credentials, genesis.market, has had its website seized by the FBI.…

China's tech giants show, yet again, they're as much a slave to silicon valley fashion as anyone Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Huawei are reportedly ready to satisfy local demand for generative AI chatbots in coming weeks.…

G7 meeting agrees that sales bans are here to stay A meeting of G7 trade ministers has flagged researchers as a possible route through which tech trade sanctions are being circumvented.…

Investors and educators called on to think more broadly at think tank event Insufficient attention has been paid to the national security implications of private enterprise taking over from government as the main source of innovation for defence and intelligence applications, according to a panel at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)'s Sydney Dialogue on Tuesday.…

98% accuracy, but tests suggest a human touch will beat the teachers Academic plagiarism-detecting software vendor Turnitin demoed an AI-writing detection tool on Tuesday, with a claim of 98 percent accuracy at spotting machine-generated cheating.…

That must be why PC sales are down – the blacks just aren't inky enough Samsung Electronics will pour $3.14 billion into production of advanced organic light-emitting-diode displays (OLED) for use in tablets and notebooks by 2026, betting it's the future for fondleslabs and laptops.…

Thieves go nose-to-tail stripping cash from victims The US Department of Justice has seized cryptocurrency worth about $112 million from accounts linked to so-called pig butchering investment scams.…

But nothing a keen beginner couldn't do, anyway A Forcepoint staffer has blogged about how he used ChatGPT to craft some code that exfiltrates data from an infected machine. At first, it sounds bad, but in reality, it's nothing an intermediate or keen beginner programmer couldn't whack together themselves anyway.…

Employees doubt IBM's claim that current layoffs were announced already IBM services spinoff Kyndryl has confirmed it's laying off staff while Big Blue is also shedding employees, as part of the industry-wide job cut contagion that has plagued the tech sector over the past few months.…

Funny way to describe a company that makes toilet cleaner Multi-brand consumer megacorp Unilever says it has become a "cloud-only enterprise" with the help of Accenture and Microsoft.…

The White House and DoD move to bolster domestic biomanufacturing When the White House rolled out its 64-page plan outlining the goals for ramping up the country's biotech and biomanufacturing industry in early March, included were sections by such departments as Agriculture, Commerce, and Health and Human Services.…

Redmond claims service is (partially) restored, some users still stuck Updated If you're wondering why Microsoft's Visual Studio App Center isn't working, it's not just you: The service's login portal went down yesterday a little before 2200 UTC, and as of writing - nearly 18 hours on - Microsoft says the issue still hasn't been fully resolved.…

Ex-employee was offered $15M by judge in 2021, but asked for a new trial instead Tesla is being ordered to pay a former employee at least $3 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit at its assembly plant in Fremont, California – just a fifth of the amount the judge offered him in 2021.…

Staff WFH so internal cafes are baking too many muffins, says doc, while bus shuttles and yoga classes are empty Google's beancounters are hunting down ways to satisfy corporate expense bill reductions, with many staff asked to sweat PC assets and some noting things like availability of staples and sticky tape becoming more limited.…

Agency asks for industry input into medium Earth orbit system The US Space Systems Command (SSC) wants input from techies and the aerospace industry as it maps out the development of a new satellite-based missile detection and tracking system.…

Some 1.4 million under-13s used the app in 2020 by the ICO's estimates Fresh off the back of an embarrassing "grilling" by US Congress on national security grounds, TikTok has received a more concrete reprimand from the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) – a fine of £12.7 million ($15.8 million) for "misusing children's data."…

Just as namesake ISP Virgin Media* falls silent out of respect Space launch outfit Virgin Orbit has filed for bankruptcy in the US just days after suspending operations and laying off most of its staff. The company said it intends to continue trying to sell the business while under Chapter 11 protection.…

That means next version of the most popular Linux distro is getting close Ubuntu "Lunar Lobster" is the middle release between the 2022 and 2024 long-term support releases so this is when Canonical tries out some new stuff.…

Yes, DoD admins, your users can ask for this now, but make sure your bots are in compliance Administrators at the US Department of Defense are just like you: soon they'll have the option to add chatbots and message extensions into Teams for users.…

Even managed to kick its own website into touch in spectacular fail Updated Liberty-owned UK broadband pusher Virgin Media has fallen on its face this morning, with users across the country reporting complete broadband failure for a number of hours, among them some of the reporters on this news desk.…

It's you, hi, you're the problem, it's you A public evidence session about artificial intelligence in weapons systems in the UK's House of Lords last week raised concerns over a piece of the AI puzzle that is rarely addressed: the effect of the technology on humans themselves, and specifically its potential to degrade our own mental competence and decision-making.…

You win this round, Cook – but Europe has already lined up changes Britain fluffed Analysis The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was forced to abandon its inquiry into Apple's role in the mobile browsing and cloud gaming markets because the agency missed its filing deadlines.…

Block complies with Indian policy, but boost may violate avian network's state-sponsored media policy Twitter has followed Indian government policy and geo-blocked an account from neighboring Pakistan, while seemingly violating its own policies by elevating the accounts of Chinese state-controlled media.…

Germany may follow, France and Ireland look for guidance from Rome As Italy suspends use of ChatGPT, other European Union countries are said to be interested in following suit over data privacy concerns.…

Blokes happily bluffed; women played it by the book, leaving the bank struggling to hire Australia's Westpac bank re-wrote its job ads for infosec roles after finding the language it used deterred female candidates.…

Even a politician who visited China last week has binned the app Australia has joined the growing list of nations that have decided TikTok represents an unacceptable risk when running on government-owned devices, so has decided not to allow it onto those machines.…

Crikey! Get those banknotes to an ATM, mate! The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ Bank) has stopped handling cash over the counter at some branches.…

We speak to the boffins behind latest trick to fool Google Assistant, Cortana, Alexa Academics in the US have developed an attack dubbed NUIT, for Near-Ultrasound Inaudible Trojan, that exploits vulnerabilities in smart device microphones and voice assistants to silently and remotely access smart phones and home devices.…

Reports suggest Beijing may speed past rivals with supersonic helper for its air superiority weapon China may be aiming to match US efforts to operate pilotless aircraft alongside crewed fighter jets, by creating a so-called "loyal wingman" drone to fly with the nation's J-20 supersonic stealth fighter.…

OpenAI tech outperforms digital serfs toiling away on Amazon's estate Machine learning models can do content processing and data sanitation work better and more affordably than people participating in crowdsourcing platforms, according to a trio of researchers.…

First for women, people of color, Canucks NASA today named the Artemis Moon program's first crew of astronauts. Among them are the first woman, the first person of color, and the first Canadian set to blast off on a lunar mission…

Never mind software supply chain attacks, lawyers are the new soft target? Uber has had more of its internal data stolen from a third party that suffered a security breach. This time, the personal info of the app's drivers was swiped by miscreants from the IT systems of law firm Genova Burns.…

Only 35 of the trucks affected, but that might be most of the ones on the road Tesla's electric Semi truck, which has only been cruising highways since December, is facing its first recall over a faulty parking brake. Unlike other issues, this one won't be fixable with an over-the-air update.…

Hope you're all looking forward to another cold war Comment For years, the United States has leveled waves of sanctions and export bans on Chinese firms in an effort to squelch the Middle Kingdom's fledgling semiconductor industry, all the while rallying allies.…

New layouts for the original 'clickier than the Model M' keyboard What's even harder-core than the IBM Model M? The Model F, the keyboard that launched alongside the IBM PC in 1981. After a 2017 relaunch, new models with the original layout are here.…

Tactical#Octopus: Don't let users click on that zip file The last few days of America's tax season are stressful enough, dealing with deadlines and, increasingly, online scams. Now comes another one, a sophisticated and ongoing phishing campaign by a threat group dubbed "Tactical#Octopus" that is using tax-related lures to spread malware.…

89% of citizens want them gone – at least among the 7.46% who showed up to vote Citizens of Paris voted on Sunday to ban e-scooters from the City of Love, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo responded by promising that the fleets of rechargeable rentables would be gone come September.…