The Register

And note to his crime pals – he said he would sing like a canary An ex-Canadian government worker who extorted tens of millions of dollars from organizations worldwide using the NetWalker ransomware has been sent down for 20 years.…

Get ready for that deposition tomorrow, Elon Elon Musk's decision this week to go ahead with his Twitter purchase – after months of trying to wriggle out of the deal – hasn't automatically stopped his upcoming trial, the judge overseeing the case said today.…

LA DA ain't happy about handling of poll workers' info Eugene Yu, CEO of Michigan-based software firm Konnech, has been arrested by police in that US state at the request of the Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, as part of an investigation into the theft of personal information.…

Small, safer vessels could be 'silicon chip' that ushers in new nuclear age As the US Department of Energy (DoE) continues to look for ways to improve molten salt nuclear reactors (MSRs), a team from Brigham Young University in Utah has designed one it says can fit safely in the bed of a 40-foot truck. …

Tell us it’s Russia without telling us it’s Russia Spies for months hid inside a US military contractor's enterprise network and stole sensitive data, according to a joint alert from the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, and NSA.…

Adaptable Linux Platform v0.01 shows that the future of SLE is containerized As we reported back in July, the future direction of SUSE Linux Enterprise is starting to take shape, and it's containers all the way down.…

Oh the hijinks of academia Researchers gave a laser beam machine vision and trained it to hunt cockroaches.…

Windows giant know exactly how to get these types fired up Microsoft is looking for a share of the financial services industry's wallets, talking up new features and a "compliance" program for its industry cloud in the run-up to next week's Ignite 2022 show.…

Well, yeah, when the batteries and power supplies can handle it, too Experimental tech designed to cool NASA equipment in space has an Earth-bound use as well: slashing electric vehicle charging times to five minutes or less.…

Neat algorithmic trick squeezing into 256KB of RAM, barely enough for inference let alone teaching Researchers claim to have developed techniques to enable the training of a machine learning model using less than a quarter of a megabyte of memory, making it suitable for operation in microcontrollers and other edge hardware with limited resources.…

New language will be official, probably within a couple of months The first big change for the forthcoming Linux kernel 6.1 is in… and it's a big one.…

Cloud and equipment makers also keen to escape Softbank's licensing boot Analysis Arm might not think RISC-V is a threat to its newfound foothold in the datacenter, but growing pressure on Chinese chipmaking could ultimately change that, Forrester Research analyst Glenn O'Donnell tells The Register.…

No formal offer yet received, Baring Private Equity Asia linked with ailing IT services house BPO and IT services multi-national DXC Technology has confirmed it is in contact with a "financial sponsor" that is interested in buying the business, amid indications that Baring Private Equity Asia is the suitor.…

Memory maker says plant will help to boost memory production in America Micron has committed to a $100 billion memory chip fabrication plant in New York State, just days after saying it was cutting back on investment because of weakening demand in the semiconductor market.…

British minister famed for love of imperial measures picks a spot in center of industrial decline UK business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has proposed building the UK’s first nuclear fusion power plant in a center of industrial decline.…

Patiently gathers data that can be used to identify the victims, says Kaspersky Cybersecurity biz Kaspersky has spotted a modified version of the Tor Browser it says collects sensitive data on Chinese users.…

And it's not the only venerable window manager still in development A new version of a quarter-century-old window manager shows that there's still room for improvement and innovation, even in established, mature tools.…

Scientists believe moth larvae saliva can oxidize, degrade polyethylene The caterpillar larvae of the wax moth produce saliva with enzymes capable of oxidizing and degrading polyethylene, offering a potential solution to the plastic pollution challenge.…

Anyone remember SoftBank's pledge to double headcount in Britain? Arm has reportedly chopped around 20 percent of its headcount in the UK, unpicking some of the recruitment commitments parent SoftBank made to the government when it bought the chip designer.…

How apt Physicists Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics this week for performing breakthrough quantum entanglement experiments.…

Industry insists it needs new blood, yet offers are being rescinded, pay rises delayed, and workers are furious Indian IT Service giant Wipro has confirmed to The Register that it expects employees will return to its office for at least three days a week as of October 10.…

No 'corruption' alleged, rumours of a big win selling to Apple make shunting a little odd The CEO of Chinese RAM and SSD maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Company (YMTC) appears to have stepped down from his position, a move that follows the departure of several other senior Chinese chipmaking execs in recent weeks.…

‘This is not what justice looks like’ says US attorney of sanction for leak of 100 million records Convicted wire fraud perpetrator Paige Thompson (aka "erratic") has been sentenced to time served and five years of probation with location and computer monitoring, prompting U.S. Attorney Nick Brown to label the sanctions unsatisfactory.…

Local activists help pen letter to government requesting - in very stern language - reasons why it's been targeted Developers of the open source VideoLAN media player have challenged India’s government to explain why the project’s web site has been blocked.…

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree Hotel chain Shangri-La Group has admitted to its systems being attacked, and personal data describing guests accessed by unknown parties, over a timeframe that includes the dates on which a high-level international defence conference was staged at one of its Singapore properties.…

Somebody missed the memo – this internet giant always gets its own way Amazon has sued Washington state's Department of Labor & Industries, claiming an order by government officials requiring the internet mega-giant to reduce hazards at a warehouse breaks the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.…

While accused of already breaking terms of an earlier deal IBM is preparing to settle yet more age discrimination and wage theft complaints against the IT giant, though in one instance where it has already done so, Big Blue is accused of failing to comply with the terms of its settlement agreement.…

Good time to be selling automation tools The US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has ordered federal civilian agencies to scan for and report software vulnerabilities in their IT systems more frequently under a directive issued this week.…

Phrasing, Arizona... AG claims deal is 'historic' Google will pay $85 million to settle a privacy lawsuit that accused the internet behemoth of deceiving netizens regarding its harvesting of people's location data and using this personal info to rake in billions of dollars in advertising revenue.…

Remaining employees can continue work in different countries, though they'll struggle to get a flight out GPU maker Nvidia is shutting down its operations in Russia following its earlier decision to stop selling products there. The company is said to be offering employees the chance to continue working for it in another country.…

World's richest man wants to kill trial – and presumably end more text message embarrassment Updated Trading in shares of Twitter was halted today on news that Elon Musk has decided to revive his takeover of Twitter, which would involve buying the company at the originally agreed price of $54.20 per share and ending their legal squabbles. …

It's officially official: Mobile devices will be required to use USB-C from 2024, with laptops following in 2026 After an initial agreement in June, the European Parliament today voted overwhelmingly to approve a USB-C charging standard that will force electronics manufacturers to ditch other ports, proprietary or otherwise. …

Exchange Online users should have authentication policies in place Microsoft is warning Exchange Online users about a rise in password spray attacks, urging those that have yet to disable Basic Authentication to at least set up authentication policies to protect their users and data.…

Souvenirs, novelties, party tricks. Your chance to snag a piece of the largest passenger jet in the world Aviation enthusiasts without the budget to bag one of the discontinued Airbus A380s are in luck, as the jetmaker plans to auction off pieces from a retired superjumbo later this month.…

Pro: Gboard Bar can 'double development speed' for pair programmers. Con: No one wants this Google's Japan business appears to have ignored its semi-official "Don't be Evil" motto by publishing blueprints for the Gboard Bar, a 1.65m (5.4 feet) QWERTY keyboard.…

Attempts to dismiss suit denied as former staffer alleges she was expressly told to swerve over-50s A US judge has rejected IT outsourcer Infosys's motions to dismiss claims of a former recruiter that the company discriminated and retaliated against her.…

Mass production, too – and if it happens, timing will be crucial as semiconductor market recovers Samsung expects to have 2nm chips in mass production by 2025 and plans to deliver mass production using a 1.4nm process by 2027, aiming to expand the capacity of such advanced process nodes "by more than 3X."…

Vatican City sovereign still not keen on seeing cellphones in the basilica It was only a matter of time before the maker of divine products met the maker's representative on Earth. And so it came to pass yesterday that the Pope granted a special audience to Apple CEO Tim Cook.…

Totally not for data collection Analysis Meta's Facebook has been testing its own custom-browser engine within its Android app and plans to distribute the code more widely, ostensibly for the sake of better security and an improved user experience.…

Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy yet to rule on sale of Brit biz to Chinese-owned Nexperia The fate of Newport Wafer Fab remains undecided as yet another deadline for the final UK government decision on its sale to China-owned Nexperia passed without any confirmation for the staff or customers involved.…

Isn't software something worth paying for? Well, frankly, no At the heart of the computer industry are some very big lies, and some of them are especially iniquitous. One is about commercial software.…

Annexed Donetsk? No more consultants for you then Fresh export sanctions were leveled at Russia by the UK last week, with IT consultancy among other professional services that are banned.…

Welsh, on the other hand, there's no tech that can help with that Boffins at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in the US are working with the usual internet super-corps to, ideally, improve AI voice recognition for people with disabilities.…

They’re on track for a whopping three percent in 2026 – well out of the mainstream, but growing faster Cross “optimise site and/or app for folding smartphones” off your to-do list: analyst firm IDC says they’re not going to be mainstream devices by the year 2026.…

Data theft stinks, says victim. Alleged perp claims he's getting a raw deal The president of casual Japanese chain restaurant Kappa Sushi resigned yesterday in the wake of a data-theft scandal that has rocked the world of sushi trains.…

Mangalyaan orbiter launched for just $74m, lasted a magnificent 16 times longer than expected India’s Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission has ended.…

Other business units also made full members of Group, perhaps hinting and spin-outs The deal to merge Citrix and Tibco has closed, and the two companies are now business units of a new entity called “Cloud Software Group” – as is NetScaler, the application delivery controller brand that Citrix acquired way back in 2005 but recently re-branded as “Citrix ADC”.…

PLUS: Toshiba considers offers, clams up; India's HFCL claims Wi-Fi 7 first; Vietnam may censor SocMed; and more Asia In Brief Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi’s Indian subsidiary has expressed disappointment with a decision by nation’s government to freeze $683 million of its assets, claiming the disputed funds were payments to US chip giant Qualcomm.…

Superstar is still exclusively a meat popsicle Bruce Willis' agent has denied the Die Hard superstar fully sold his image rights to an AI startup specializing in deepfake technology.…

Some days, security just feels like a total illusion. OK, most days... A recently disclosed critical vulnerability in Atlassian's Bitbucket is actively being exploited, according to the US government.…