The Register

Fears of bias put compsci dept into damage-limitation mode after years of using it to analyze applications A university announced it has ditched a machine-learning tool used to filter thousands of PhD applications – right as the software's creators were giving a talk about the code and drawing public criticism.…

For those teeny, tiny, migraine-inducing nuts and bolts Bork!Bork!Bork! A bork of a different nature today, as we find evidence of the curse cropping up not in the usual places, but instead lurking within digital-based terms and conditions.…

Messsage Center: Call this number. Number: Use the Message Center. Many companies have no mechanism to deal with a common problem: when users open accounts using someone else's email address, either by accident or design. "I have had a barrage of account creation requests that will fail ... also a large number of invoices, warranty emails and so on for purchases, from furniture to electronics," a reader informed us.…

However, this same nitty-gritty ERP stuff is not cloud-ready, and that's the big vendor's weakness Comment Among the fads of the last couple of years have been the bolting on of AI, automation and “user experience” onto enterprise application work-horses. The pressure to follow the trend has been so strong that SAP, Microsoft and Oracle have all jumped on the bandwagon to ensure their products look suitably on-trend.…

He had, and inspired, The Right Stuff Famed test pilot Chuck Yeager has died, aged 97.…

New release of Cloud Pak coming soon, but VMware and Micro Focus are way out in front In October 2020, IBM bet the business on hybrid cloud. But analyst firm Forrester has just rated Big Blue a mere "contender" for hybrid cloud management, well behind market leaders.…

Kicks in $400m to get its hands on future tech and cash in on its contribution Uber has driven its self-driving car operation up an off-ramp that leads to the offices of a startup named Aurora that is building self-driving trucks and plans to eventually get around to the kind of vehicles used by Uber drivers.…

Maybe don't enter unless you fancy reading colossal piles of sanctions rules Iran has asked for bids to provide the nation with a bug bounty program.…

Requires the bleeding obvious to be pointed out,calls for more regulation India is worried about fantasy sports and will regulate their operation and advertising on television.…

Rebekah Jones claimed Sunshine State fudged infection numbers, now she's suspected of hacking Florida's state police on Monday morning raided the home of coronavirus tracker Rebekah Jones, seizing her electronics at gunpoint as part of a computer hacking investigation.…

Nathan Simington not qualified, they claim, and installed to create deadlock Two leading Democratic senators and a range of advocacy groups have condemned a partisan effort to force through confirmation of a new FCC commissioner.…

So, you know, patch it The NSA reckons Russian government hackers are actively abusing a critical security hole in VMWare's software to infiltrate victims' networks. Sysadmins are urged to deploy the necessary patch as soon as possible.…

'Zero-click, wormable, cross-platform' vuln deemed 'important, spoofing' rather than, say, 'aaargh!' Updated At some point since August, Microsoft quietly fixed a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug in its Teams web app that opened the door to a serious remote-code-execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Linux, macOS, and Windows desktop versions of its Teams collaboration app.…

IAC calls foul over Chrome extensions spat, complicated by antitrust case Google wants to eradicate Chrome extensions it believes mislead and misdirect users toward competing search engine Ask.com, though is wary of doing so because of how it may look to antitrust investigators, according to a report on Sunday.…

Plus: Fault-prone iPhone 11 display? Send it in, says Apple Apple released iOS 14.2 last month, with a laundry list of 24 security updates some of which were being exploited in the wild, leading The Reg to urge users to patch ASAP. Those sensible souls who heeded the call, however, were gifted with 100 new emoji, dark-mode wallpapers, and, according to users of certain older devices, rapid battery drain.…

Only on Windows of course, and only for certain types of deployment Microsoft will add the .NET Core and .NET 5.0 runtimes to the update service built into Windows - but enterprises must opt in, and applications have to be deployed using a shared runtime for this to be effective.…

Also: Orion challenges and a quarter century since SOHO's launch In Brief As the Chinese Chang'e-5 mission sent its precious payload of lunar dirt into space, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin kicked off a fourth thrust chamber test series of the BE-7 engine, which will power the National Team Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA's Artemis program.…

Updates for Chromium, the addition of PulseAudio and printer improvements turn up in Santa's Raspberry sack The Raspberry Pi team has served up yet another reason to prematurely unbox the Pi-under-the-tree with an update to the Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS.…

Community service for creepy constable A police constable has been sacked after reportedly tracking down young women motorists through their car numberplates and propositioning them on social media.…

The week's other security news In Brief It looks like the Egregor crew is at it again, and this time the ransomware-flingers have caught venerable but struggling US retail biz Kmart.…

Big screen fondleslab action for 20H2 slides into 2021 Microsoft has applied the brakes to the roll-out of the latest Windows 10 to the Surface Hub 2S after customers reported problems following installation.…

Arriving from a listed at-risk nation? New rules in place mid-December IT pros have joined the elite of high-flying biz execs, sports stars, and celebrity actors in qualifying for UK.gov's exemptions to two-week Covid-19 self-isolation rules when returning to England from listed at-risk nations.…

Agrees to acquire UK outfit IMImobile for $730m US networking giant Cisco has agreed to buy London-based cloud comms business IMImobile in a $730m (roughly £550m) all-cash deal.…

Not sure what it's supposed be saying but it probably isn't 0x00000050 Bork!Bork!Bork! Bork is on wheels yet again as we visit Ireland and a very unhappy bit of mobile signage.…

On the other hand, they're not going anywhere, so it's win-win for Big Red Thoughts of future projects and upgrade paths have given way to more pressing business-wide concerns about Brexit and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UK Oracle User Group.…

It's just Apple doing what Apple does best. Making loads of money by tending to its Walled Garden Apple Silicon has been the autumn’s hottest news in cool chips. Giving Intel two years’ notice, the first laptop and desktop with the new Arm-based M1 chip have shipped and the benchmarks run. If you believe some of the more febrile headlines, Apple has upended the industry, sparked a revolution and changed the face of computing forever.…

Who is the debugger that took down my mainframe? Who, Me? Take a step back half a century with a cautionary tale of mainframes, student enthusiasm, and a shrinking deck of cards. Welcome to Who, Me?…

Bad design bites as Flight Centre's policy of no credit card or passport numbers in app's free text field was not enforced, therefore ignored Be careful what you wish for when running a hackathon, because one in Australia turned up a data breach in the trove of sample data offered to hackers. And it was probably developers’ fault.…

Catch up on these Intel webinars and learn what AI and 5G mean for you Promo The last 12 months have seen technology leaders grapple with unprecedented change – but only the most naïve would expect things to slow down in 2021.…

Plus: US President signs a new executive order on AI and how JAX is becoming more popular at DeepMind In brief A Canadian security company apparently lied to officials at New York’s Lockport City School District about the accuracy of its facial recognition cameras, when the technology was installed across schools last year.…

Probe now sets sail for further adventures VIDS ‘N’ PICS Japanese and Australian astroboffins have successfully recovered samples taken from Asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 probe.…

Grab grabs a license and so did China’s Ant Group Uber is poised to become the owner of a decent chunk of a new bank in Singapore.…

The possible plan to create a parallel financial system also adds bump-to-pay in new domestic trial China has found the first jurisdiction willing to entertain the idea of using its digital currency for cross-border payments: Hong Kong.…

Well now you can. Here’s how… Promo If you’re on the front line of cyber security, this has been a year like no other, with new threats emerging even as the great shift to home working has exposed long ignored weaknesses in existing infrastructure.…

Two and a half decades on, JavaScript is everywhere JavaScript turned twenty-five years old on Friday, if you count from December 4, 1995, when Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems first announced the technology.…

Light-based quantum system bests classical supercomputer Boffins from China say that they have managed to detect as many as 76 photons using a quantum computer, a result said to be the second demonstration of "quantum supremacy" or "quantum primacy" – solving a problem that a quantum computer can do far better than a classical computer.…

Attempting to save aquatic life trapped in old fishing nets, divers uncover a hidden treasure Divers clearing out a sprawl of abandoned fishing nets stuck in the Baltic Sea discovered more than they bargained for when they spotted an Enigma Machine, a device that encrypted secret messages used by the Germans in World War II.…

So here's LAMBDA to make custom functions out of those formulas Microsoft will let users create custom functions in Excel using the number wrangler's own formula language.…

Sitting comfortably? It's an Azure Purview Preview Microsoft has teased Azure Purview, a tech built to deal with customers' data compliance and governance requirements by verifiyng the presence of sensitive information without users having to eyeball the stuff first.…

Expert advice on how to combat one of the most dangerous online threats Promo With the COVID-19 pandemic leading us all to depend on online services like we never have before, a DDoS attack that takes operations offline can have very serious and long-term consequences for a business. Add to this the huge surge in DDoS attacks this year, with assaults getting bigger, more powerful and disruptive, and it’s clear security leaders need to urgently get to grips with how to deal with them.…

Deferred prosecution agreement offered to Meng Wanzhou US prosecutors have reportedly offered Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou a deferred prosecution agreement. If accepted, the deal will have charges deferred and eventually dismissed, but will require Meng to admit to wrongdoing.…

Good to see the youth being productive Well, that escalated quickly. In a scene not unlike the opening minutes of 2001, a group of angry young men stole up Pine Mountain, expressed distaste for Mexicans and aliens, then proceeded to tear down the latest instalment of 2020's favourite meme.…

Should we be worried? The undead have telepathic powers if Microsoft's latest Windows 10 Insider emission is to be believed.…

Plan is to get public sector buying services straight from suppliers The UK government has launched a £750m procurement looking for platform and infrastructure services direct from public cloud providers - the latest in a bewildering array of UK.gov frameworks for the fluffy white stuff.…

I'd plug it back in but the cable's not long enough for a jog Something for the Weekend, Sir? It's a pain in the neck, that's what it is.…

Software sales for Christmas Job Alert We're doing our bit to keep techies teching with free job listings for anyone looking to hire such skills in the midst of this pandemic.…

Digging into the tech and strategy with compute services veep Deepak Singh Interview At its virtual re:Invent conference this week, AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced Amazon EKS and ECS Anywhere, a move Canonical said enables EKS to run "anywhere you can get Ubuntu."…

At last, a chance for a random phone-toting passer-by to show their quality Bork!Bork!Bork! An opportunity presents itself in today's column of bork to inject some honesty into a local estate agency thanks to a screen that is begging for a bit of casting.…

Machine programming and other future technology touted at Chipzilla shindig Intel on Thursday trotted out its research scientists to talk up technology initiatives that aim to make computation faster and developers less of a liability.…

Panto season arrives at Vulture Central On Call Welcome back to On Call, this week with some pantomime-like japes. 'Tis the season after all.…