The Register

Plus: Google Ethical AI team firings backlash worsens In brief Facebook this week revealed an internal project to create machine-learning models that can understand visual, audio, and written content from videos publicly uploaded to its social network.…

Weapons-grade hypocrisy on one side, opportunistic hand-wringing about the press on the other Video Google and Microsoft were locked in a rare public war of words on Friday as the US House subcommittee on antitrust held a hearing to discuss how Big Tech has impacted the media.…

Boffin who invented ANS encoding and made it public domain worries Microsoft will come rent-seeking Analysis In June, 2019, Microsoft applied for a US patent covering enhancements to a data encoding method known as rANS, one of several variants in the Asymmetric Numeral System (ANS) family that form the foundation of data compression schemes used by Apple, Facebook, Google, various other companies, and open source projects.…

Gross? Maybe, but at least your Fitbit is still working Imagine you are out for a run with tunes fuelling your stride. Suddenly, your earbuds run out of juice and your good vibes come to a screeching halt. "Ugh," you groan as you look to your activity tracker for encouragement, only to realise it's dead too.…

I don't believe it, I had to see it, I came back, I came back haunted Google on Friday released proof-of-concept code for conducting a Spectre-based attack against its Chrome browser to show how web developers can take steps to mitigate browser-based side-channel attacks.…

Less than a fifth of a linguine, for goodness' sake – come on now Reg Standards Bureau A new potential contribution to the world's sole source of approved units of measure has emerged – the Haribo gummy bear.…

Nice to see politicos agree on something, even if it is 'bipartisan dislike' of China A change in occupancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue hasn't done much for Huawei's fortunes as the Biden administration looks set to toughen restrictions against the battered Chinese telecoms outfit.…

GCHQ offshoot points orgs at Microsoft advice and tools The UK's National Cyber Security Centre has reminded Brits to patch their Microsoft Exchange Server deployments against Hafnium attacks, 10 days after the US and wider infosec industry shouted the house down saying the same thing.…

iFixit's flagship autopsy finds glue. Lots of glue iFixit – an organisation with a toddler-like proclivity for breaking phones – today published its teardown of Samsung's latest and greatest: the Galaxy S21 Ultra.…

Writing to forbidden memory and not closing the door cause headaches for custodians of restored spacecraft The Hubble Space Telescope resumed science operations this morning after a software error knocked the veteran spacecraft offline.…

Industry will pick up the rest of bill... yep, this old chestnut again The UK government is set to release £500m of funding for the Shared Rural Network to improve mobile access in far-flung areas by adding new infrastructure and convincing operators to share their antennas with rivals.…

So how's that UWP thing working out for you? Axe-happy Redmond has set the clock ticking on paid apps from its moribund Microsoft Store for Business and Education.…

Come on in and take a look at this week's opportunities – and keep those free ads coming if you need tech talent Job Alert With the pandemic still in full swing, The Reg is publishing free job ads to help keep tech professionals in gainful employment during these unusual times.…

The circle is complete. Now I am the master… er, I mean 'the source' Something for the Weekend, Sir? "Let me be absolutely clear about this…" As soon as you hear these words, you know the rest of the sentence will be evasive, meandering, and vague.…

'They're dictating how to monitor networks, without fully understanding the impact on the sector' Introduced last year by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the UK's Telecommunications Security Bill aims to change how mobile and fixed-line communications systems are built and operated.…

Similar attempt was made in London, where it failed Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's legal team has begun proceedings against HSBC in Hong Kong to obtain documents they believe will support her defence against extradition from Canada to the US.…

37 years later and fomer state-owned telco might be facing its own Black Monday For the first time since 1987, the Communication Workers Union is to run a national ballot of unionised workers at BT Group to test their appetite for strike action over job losses, office closures and more.…

The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of forty thousand... cigarettes? On Call A reader's brush with filth is retold in today's episode of On Call in which the dirtier side of IT is laid bare.…

Less pew, pew, pew and more click, click, click NASA released this week the first audio recordings captured by its six-wheeled nuclear-powered rover Perseverance in action, zapping rock samples as the Martian wind eerily whispers in the background..…

Works just fine on ancient low-end Androids, so now The Social Network™ can monopolise developing nations too! Facebook has unveiled a new weapon in its world domination plan: a two-megabyte version of its Instagram app.…

Cloud company offers slightly confused roadmap to restoration French cloud provider OVH has suggested a UPS could be the cause of the fire that destroyed one of its data centres and took another three offline.…

How can we put this? Imagine beanie babies were screenshots that needed their own power plant NFTs – or non-fungible tokens, a newfangled way to trade virtual assets – truly exploded into the mainstream on Thursday when Christie’s auctioned off its first-ever NFT digital artwork for $69,346,250. Not a typo.…

US industry groups still want Biden administration cash for local manufacturing The Semiconductor Industry Association of China (SIAC) and its United States counterpart the Semiconductor Industry Association have announced the establishment of a biannual chatfest to address technical and trade-related issues.…

Regulator keen to know how Android Choice works in the EU, what makes the Google/Apple relationship tick, and if Salesforce buying Slack is a problem Australia is going after Big Tech again, this time with research on “the impact of default settings and pre-installation of search services and web browsers on consumer choice and competition.”…

Cops probe vice chairman Samsung's appropriately ranked vice-chairman Lee Jae-Yong, right now behind bars for bribery, concealment of criminal proceeds, and embezzlement, is being investigated for illegal drug use.…

Funny how code that targets Redmond vanishes while tons of others menacing other vendors remain On Wednesday, shortly after security researcher Nguyen Jang posted a proof-of-concept exploit on GitHub that abuses a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability revealed earlier this month, GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, removed code, to the alarm of security researchers.…

Mozillians formulate 'prime' directive for browser's comeback following psychological study Mozilla has found a way to make its Firefox browser feel faster without any engineering effort: tell people that it's faster than the competition.…

But questions remain over its enterprise app credentials ServiceNow, the IT helpdesk vendor with a yearning for world domination, has launched its latest platform upgrade, Quebec, which features new AI, low-code app development tools and a bit of process mining thrown in for good measure.…

One of them is a critical RCE bug Netgear has released a swathe of security and firmware updates for its JGS516PE Ethernet switch after researchers from NCC Group discovered 15 vulnerabilities in the device – including an unauthenticated remote code execution flaw.…

'It's something that we, as an industry, invented' but all customers wanted were end-to-end business processes Middleweight enterprise application provider IFS is launching a cloud platform and rebuilding its applications. Just don't expect to find a standalone ERP product in there.…

Microsoft's rigorous testing at work Microsoft's near-legendary approach to quality in Windows has struck again, with customers complaining of blue screens rather than print-outs following a recent patch.…

But relies on integrated graphics, and what's the serial port for? Perhaps the only element of Huawei's consumer business that's emerged unscathed from US sanctions has been its PC line. With the Chinese tech giant's computer supply chain intact, it has been business as usual, and the company just introduced its first desktop PC beyond mainland China.…

Especially if you're routinely handling RAR files Malware-peddling spammers are using a curious variation on the old custom file-extension dodge to evade scanning tools, according to Trustwave.…

Only for new projects, but beware the hardcoded references One-stop DevOps shop GitLab has joined the movement to change the default name for an initial branch in a Git repository in favour of something less historically problematic.…

Plus: Ellison ramps up SAP trash-talking. At least some things are the same in 2021 Updated Oracle has underwhelmed the market with its Q3 results – shares took a minor tumble yesterday. But true to form its island-owning founder and CTO did his best to distract from matters at hand by talking up wins against its arch-rival and hyping technology it is yet to launch.…

'Predator' sent down for eight years after pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars A man who conned four women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by falsely claiming they were investing in a software biz was this week sentenced to eight years behind bars.…

But there's a lot more to worry about in new Bill, say campaigners A new UK law will explicitly authorise the "voluntary" slurping of data from mobile phones of crime suspects and witnesses.…

Also: NASA to send another astronaut up in a Soyuz, Mars Express has its head in the clouds In brief Fancy a career change? Be quick, and the chief exec's desk at the UK Space Agency could be yours. The permanent full-time position with a salary of £125,000 is likely to be challenging as the UK seeks to maintain its position as a space-based international leader in the wake of ructions such as the country's departure from the EU.…

'Data has been extracted' as Swiss-cheese servers are exploited Norway's Parliament has joined the growing list of organisations hit by vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Exchange Server.…

It's not just car-makers slowing down: Advantech supplies the likes of Cisco and IBM COVID-related silicon supply chain issues have impacted core information technology products, according to Taiwanese industrial tech specialist Advantech.…

Because that’s not where the threat is anymore Webcast If you’re currently running your company’s cyber security operation from home, ask yourself, where exactly is the “perimeter” you’re supposed to be protecting?…

Take it from us Earthlings, we know what a species can really do to a planet Astronomers have been offered a cheat sheet on the kinds of things to look out for – from air pollution to energy production – when hunting for signs of intelligent life on faraway exoplanets.…

... and a lot of wrist action Facebook has outlined what it believes will be the future of online interaction – and it’s a device that will sit on your wrist and act as a next-generation mouse.…

In seven flavours, accessible from Windows or macOS, with Active Directory support and USB passthrough Alibaba Cloud has quietly started a private beta of Elastic Desktop Service – a desktop-as-a-service offering.…

Says demand for space is booming and private enterprise loves its liberalisation plans India has decided to boost the budget of its space program by 46 percent.…

Remote code execution, denial of service, API abuse possible. Meanwhile, FBI pegs China for Exchange hacks Security and automation vendor F5 has warned of seven patch-ASAP-grade vulnerabilities in its Big-IP network security and traffic-grooming products, plus another 14 vulns worth fixing.…

Journalism Competition and Preservation Act has been proposed twice already. Will it survive this time? Both chambers of Congress reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would give American publishers the power to negotiate with tech companies, like Facebook and Google, over the use of news content online.…

Multiple Object Versionless Architecture is as popular now as it was two decades ago Alan Holden, the inventor of the MOVA programming language, doesn't mention it on his resume, which isn't entirely surprising since it never really existed.…

See, regular expressions are hard Websites with domain names containing 't.co' were knackered in Russia today as a result of the Kremlin throttling Twitter.…

Moz urges ISPs told to commit to opt-in data usage – as if one more scolding might make a difference in decades of opt-out In the wake of a T-Mobile US privacy policy change that will automatically share US users' web and mobile app data with marketers, Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Society, and others, have published an open letter asking internet service providers to do more to promote privacy, particularly as it applies to the DNS data that reflects online interaction.…