The Register

Lock, stock and one smoking kernel: YMMV on performance boost, but either way, it's a bit of fun Friday FOSS Fest Looking for a little more desktop responsiveness? Liquorix provides current, easy-to-install desktop-performance-optimised kernels for Ubuntu, Mint, Debian and derivatives… and Arch and Red Hat users can get it, too.…

Servers, storage parts challenges too, according to Q4 earnings call Just when Dell thought it was getting on top of the knotty PC supply chain, the outlook is deteriorating again with the backlog swelling and no relief from pressure due to freight charges – the same dynamics that are at play in its server and storage division.…

Modern networks need programmable hardware, open software – a dip in the Ice Lake Intel has lifted the lid on new technologies for the edge and AI ahead of the Mobile World Congress conference including new Xeon D chips with integrated acceleration features and an updated OpenVINO toolkit for AI inferencing.…

Not quite touch-first, but a bit more fondle-friendly Another test build of Windows 11 has emerged, this time with improvements aimed at tablet users.…

Once Japanese giant's main squeezes, they're being ditched at end of decade Fujitsu has confirmed the end of the road for its mainframes and Unix server systems. It will cease to sell both by the end of this decade, with support services continuing for a further five years.…

Cyberup campaign hasn't gone away, you know Infosec researcher Rob Dyke, best known to Reg readers for fending off legal threats from not-for-profit open-source foundation Apperta after finding a data breach, has visited Parliament to demand Computer Misuse Act reform.…

It's all the data's fault, of course… and it's my data so that means it's my fault Something for the Weekend Sorry about the noise: two of my dishwashers are going through their rinse cycle. Pass me your plate and I'll set off the third.…

The program is Fast, the sales team is Furious, and their data is definitely not Expendable On Call It's been a bit of a week hasn't it? Grab yourself a biscuit and settle down for another story from a brave Register reader who was only trying to help. Welcome to On Call.…

Jump the queue by spending more with one player or thinking outside the box Gartner has asserted that lead times for new networking equipment will remain long until early in the year 2023, and thereafter display "slow incremental improvement over the course of months."…

Also has more than 100 million 2G subscribers, and a tiny PC market One billion Indian wireless services subscribers were active in December 2021 – the first time the nation has breached the nine-figure barrier. But that colossal number betrays a market that is still far from saturated by smartphones or ready for rich digital services.…

Noble gas price hike would be just what the world needs ... not Analysts have warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine may cause trouble down the line for chipmakers, which are still now caught up in a component supply crunch that's affecting product shipments.…

Bye bye, coffee break Microsoft's GitHub on Wednesday said customers using its Codespaces hosted development environments can now try out prebuilt systems in a public beta test.…

In the Middle Kingdom DeFi is seen as defiance, not delightful disruption China has again cracked down on cryptocurrencies – this time with a Supreme People's Court ruling that paves the way for criminal prosecution of those who conduct cryptocurrency transactions.…

Is AWS down? It depends who you ask Analysis Internet services in the US on Thursday were far more stable than those in Ukraine and Russia, but even so reports of problems surfaced.…

And Player Three 'Iran' has entered the game? Russia's invasion of Ukraine could be followed by an escalation in cyberwarfare with the West, experts have warned.…

Software may find solution to terminal idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis The first phase of clinical trials testing an AI-designed drug to treat a chronic lung disease is now underway, according to biotech startup Insilico Medicine.…

With developer in prison, it only seems just Linux kernel developer Matthew Wilcox has proposed removing ReiserFS from the Linux kernel – a relatively rare step.…

Company offers protection against internal and supply chain threats Cybersecurity firm BlueVoyant has taken $250m in a fresh funding round announced this week, pushing the company's valuation past the $1bn mark.…

$1.8bn deal not tainted by ex-NASA consultant, watchdog finds The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has rejected a complaint alleging US system integrator Leidos nabbed a juicy NASA IT contract after engaging a former NASA official to help prepare its proposal.…

Bolstering email defences to keep cybercrooks at bay Krazy Glue of the internet Cloudflare has buffed up its email security with the purchase of anti-phishing firm Area 1.…

Now three for three with the major cloud players after deals with Google and Microsoft Kyndryl, the infrastructure services business spun out from IBM last year, has signed a money-making deal with Amazon Web Services to help customers navigate cloud transformation.…

Prepare your removable mass storage It appears that the diminutive Linux distribution Slax is not dead. It's been a while, but version 11.2 has finally popped out.…

Some software developers began moving staff to safer areas in December last year The Ukrainian tech industry is invoking business continuity plans after 150,000 Russian troops began a military invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, crossing its borders and bombing military targets near big cities.…

Users set to get right to access products' data stream, public sector might dip in too In proposals aimed at IoT and machine data, the European Commission has put forward the Data Act, which promises to force manufacturers to share streams of after-sale data with third-party tech firms.…

Among top 10 government tech trends, claims Gartner Gartner's latest set of public sector technology trends predicts, among other things, that a third of national governments (and half of US states) will have mobile-based identity wallets on offer by 2024.…

Approved by the Department of Good Luck, You'll Need It A new project dubbed Neptune OS intends to put a Windows-NT-compatible personality on top of the seL4 microkernel.…

Linutronix buy looks like a boon for those waiting on PREEMPT_RT Intel announced a move on Wednesday that will inject fresh energy into a Linux kernel project that started close to two decades ago – and was lacking funding and contributors.…

Mobile data is cheap so Chrome doesn't need to bother saving it any more Google has announced that it's going to deprecate "Chrome Data Saver" – a feature added to the mobile version of its Chrome browser in 2014 to … wait for it … save data.…

Still plans to make life hard for Beijing, but wants to reduce the chances of domestic division The United States' National Security Division will wind up its "China Initiative" – an effort to combat what then-attorney general Jeff Sessions described in 2018 as "systematic and calculated threats" posed by Beijing-backed economic espionage.…

Launches Alder Lake P, U-series processors – with muted claims about battery life Intel has applied the Evo specification it uses to define thin and light consumer-grade laptops to PCs that employ the vPro standard it uses for business kit.…

'Radio altimeters cannot be relied upon to function' – gulp The US Federal Aviation Administration warned on Wednesday that 5G C-band transmissions may interfere with landing operations at a limited set of airports for most Boeing 737 aircraft.…

He probably knows a thing or two about nobody understanding him Meta has had a bad start to the year.…

Of course you realize, this means war Hundreds of computers in Ukraine have been infected with data-wiping Windows malware, say researchers at ESET.…

There's gold in them thar forms Government agencies and industry groups are putting increasing pressure on enterprises to ensure their systems, and the vast amounts of data they are holding, are protected against the growing threat of ransomware and others cyber-attacks.…

Bvp47 of yore said to have used BPF to conceal comms in network traffic Pangu Lab has identified what it claims is a sophisticated backdoor that was used by the NSA to subvert highly targeted Linux systems around the world for more than a decade.…

Digital skirmishes continue as tension mounts in Eastern Europe The EU has sent a cyber response team to Ukraine as rumours of a planned Russian invasion reach fever pitch. Meanwhile, IBM's infosec division says the UK was one of the most targeted countries in Europe for cyberattacks last year.…

And let me clue you in: I am the one who CloudKnox Microsoft Defender's tentacles have spread to include the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – and beefed up visibility with a public preview of CloudKnox Permissions.…

Previously separate capabilities bundled into a single platform Arrcus has released version 2.0 of its Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE), a network platform aimed at core-to-edge infrastructure deployments, which now bundles previously separate capabilities into a single unit.…

As long as it translates into a better user experience Americans are outspoken in their concerns about what companies are doing with the vast amounts of personal data they're collecting, but more than half are apparently OK with allowing organizations access if doing so gives them a better user experience.…

Update those boxes pronto – yes, we're looking at you, users of Trusty Tahr and Xenial Xerus Ubuntu has issued a batch of updates that cover the default as well as the AWS and KVM flavours for the current short-term release 21.10, both the original 5.04 and OEM 5.14 builds for the current 20.04 LTS release, as well as 18.04, and, surprisingly, even 16.04 and 14.04.…

Massive language models will be big businesses in decade ahead It is hard to ignore the buzz around massive language models like GPT-3. These are not your typical natural language processing (NLP) engines that power enterprise chatbots or call centers. This is a dramatic step forward, one that makes traditional NLP output look like a simple parroting back of trained answers.…

NoSQL slinger sees future in edge and IoT – and 'eventual consistency' NoSQL database vendor Couchbase is about to launch the third upgrade to its mobile database, with new features promising REST-based remote administration support for large multi-tenant edge applications.…

Will be able to integrate with corporate Wi-Fi networks, but not a replacement, it says HPE has introduced a Private 5G network for organisations with requirements such as broad geographic coverage or high reliability, plus the ability to integrate with corporate Wi-Fi networks.…

Framework deal to cut across software, services and systems integration Universities across Scotland are clubbing together to soften up the market in preparation for an enterprise software procurement estimated to be worth £42m.…

You need to switch on E2EE in group meetings, watch out for US Cloud Act, warns impact assessment A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been published by a Dutch ministry, noting that Microsoft still has work to do if the country's institutions are to use the company's products without all manner of mitigations.…

DOS ain't dead... and it's more fun than ever Nearly six years after its last release, FreeDOS 1.3 came out at the weekend… in case you're feeling nostalgic for a 1980s enterprise-grade OS.…

Anticipates 'increased pressure on input costs' on raw materials, labour, and freight Schneider Electric is the latest tech biz to blame supply chain constraints for holding back its trading output, despite claiming record revenues of €28.9bn ($32.78bn) in its full year results for 2021 [PDF].…

Firewalls are supposed to update so they block new threats – miss this deadline and they might not Cisco has warned users of its Firepower firewalls – physical and virtual – that they may need to upgrade their kit within a four-day window or miss out on security intelligence updates.…

Black ink has proven elusive since 2014 acquisition of IBM's x86 server business Lenovo's data center and infrastructure business has turned a profit for the first time.…

Operation Cache Panda went after software used by majority of industry players China's state-sponsored snoops conducted a two-month campaign against Taiwanese financial services firms, according to CyCraft, a security consultancy from the island nation.…