The Register

Someone's not getting a five-star rating Uber has temporarily suspended the accounts of two drivers and 240 users in Mexico, after both drivers carried a passenger that may have been infected with the Wuhan coronavirus that has officially killed at least 426 people so far.…

Full-year profit up 14% to $34.3bn, YouTube bringing in $15bn ad sales – and shares down Google's parent Alphabet on Monday reported $162bn in revenue for its 2019 fiscal year, up 18 per year over year, and $46bn in revenue for its fourth quarter, up 17 per cent.…

US watchdog struggles to do its job over illegal sale of folks' whereabouts It’s been nearly two years since it was first revealed that US cellular networks were selling real-time location data with inadequate safeguards. Late last week, after months of political pressure, the regulator in charge, the FCC, finally revealed the results of an investigation.…

Verizon's hypocrisy, Amazon's negging, odd targeting from Google Comment It all looked so good. A stunning third quarter in Sunday’s Super Bowl left the San Francisco 49ers looking like dead certs for the armored rugby trophy. And then it all fell apart: the Niners pulled a WeWork, and got crushed like an orange in a Juicero by the Kansas City Chiefs.…

Software biz's celebration of inclusivity questioned by ousted staffers Special report In late January, code storage biz GitLab published a blog post declaring that "diversity and inclusion is a core value at GitLab and fundamental to our success." Nonetheless, the company has had trouble retaining female executives.…

Ditches mobe-cum-tablet for clamshell It's a matter of days until Samsung unveils its latest lineup, and already leakers have got their hands on footage of its latest flexible mobe in all its bendy glory.…

All your clouds look like K8 Google will support Windows Server Containers in its Kubernetes engine, and has emitted a connector that makes all its cloud resources look like Kubernetes.…

End of an era in mobe design The humble BlackBerry (by TCL™) is dead. At least in its current incarnation.…

Jan Wörner dodges another round of 'hurdles' by stepping down European Space Agency Director General, Jan Wörner, has confirmed he will be vacating his post in 2021, citing "some hurdles" in public as his reason for leaving but writing of "dirty games" in an email to staff.…

Silent geolocation-dependent services are so reliable A German artist has had a bit of fun with Google Maps after tricking its free satnav service into displaying traffic jams – by walking around with a hand cart full of mobile phones.…

It was indeed the expired certificate wotdunnit. Popcorn time! Updated Microsoft's Slack-for-Suits collaboration platform has decided that Mondays aren't for it and has gone back to bed, much to the distress of Office 365 customers around the world.…

IT services offline for days now Australian courier company Toll has shut down several of its key systems after a "security incident" last week, prompting a backlash from frustrated customers.…

Option to securely carry your user profile with you in next release The systemd-homed service, which enables portable home directories, has been merged into the code for systemd and will be included in the forthcoming 245 release.…

He was also secretly filming in leisure centres A perv who reportedly hacked people's iCloud accounts to obtain sexual images before sharing them online has been sent to prison for nearly three years.…

Also: Latest Windows 10 Insider Build's new surprise feature, which rhymes with 'chug' and doesn't like penguins Roundup Welcome to the first Microsoft roundup of February 2020, the month after the plug was finally pulled on Windows 7. There remains, however, plenty left for Redmond to put the boot into, from Windows 10 Insider builds to poor old UWP.…

Some assembly required. Just like the real thing The Register's resident brick botherer picked up Lego's new International Space Station (ISS). But is it any good?…

Partner webinar pours cold water on compute cartridge for boardroom behemoth Those hankering for a big bastard Surface Hub with a bit more horsepower could be in for disappointment as Microsoft appeared to confirm that the 2X won't be showing up any time soon.…

Tried not suing your customers when they make claims? FIC 2020 EU companies aren't taking out insurance against attacks on online assets because the companies selling coverage aren't organised enough – while Brits are more likely to pay off ransomware crooks than others.…

Only extra special Clubcard holders entrusted with Media Player on the move We interrupt the McDonald's-based borkage to bring you news of a Windows desktop spotted in an unlikely place – the handheld device used by shoppers to scan their purchases at the Tesco store in Carlisle, UK.…

Top military officers talk about response thresholds at French shindig FIC 2020 Western military alliance NATO could have reacted with force to the 2017 WannaCry ransomware outbreak that locked up half of Britain's NHS, Germany's top cybergeneral has said.…

Starting from scratch. A really big scratch Who, Me? Welcome back to Who, Me?, The Register's regular ramble into the dark recesses of readers' memories where we prod consciences with a long, sharp stick.…

January's other AI news summarized for you... by a human... honest Roundup Let's catch you up on the latest goings on in the world of AI beyond what we've already written about.…

Also, Wawa data surfaces on dark markets after December's hack Roundup It has been a busy week in infosec, though here's a few more security news bites to mull over.…

6 March release date 'leaked' Samsung is yet to name, let alone announce, its next-generation flagship but that hasn't stopped it capitalising on the hype by opening pre-orders for pre-orders, giving the most enthusiastic users first dibs.…

Spring Hill NNP-I inference parts to live on, Spring Crest NNP-T is toast Intel has axed Nervana's in-development NNP-T AI training chip, code-named Spring Crest, as it goes full-steam ahead with Habana's technology.…

BT, Gamma, Nationwide, Tide, anyone else? Today was more Friday the 13th than Friday the 31st in the UK, it seems. Not only is it Brexit Day, marking Blighty's withdrawal from Europe, but a bunch of services and internet connectivity broke.…

DNS overseer gets letter demanding documents about controversial registry sale The California State Attorney General's Office (CA-OAG) sent a letter last week to DNS overlord ICANN asking for confidential information about the planned sale of the .org registry and a delay of the transaction.…

And it only took, er, four and a half months for people to see sense Criminal charges have been dropped against two infosec professionals who were arrested during a sanctioned physical penetration test gone wrong.…

Fight! Fight! Fight! The cloudy database world was plunged into drama at the close of this week, as Amazon Web Services locked horns with Microsoft in a spat over benchmarks.…

Glimmer of hope in OLED biz Shares in South Korean electronics firm LG Display spiked today after it posted a smaller-than-expected loss in the previous quarter and a better prognosis ahead for its OLED business.…

The one true Jesus mobe walks away with the Q4 phone market Apple was the biggest mobile phone seller on the block in Q4 – which is about the only positive thing that could be said for iPhone's trading in 2019.…

Astronomers wring hands as more small sats sent aloft Small-sat flinger Rocket Lab beat the winds to get the mysterious National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payload off the New Zealand launchpad this morning.…

How about them Apples? The European Parliament has voted in favour of binding rules that would mandate the introduction of a bloc-wide common charging standard for mobile devices. The measure passed yesterday by 582 votes to 40, with 37 abstentions, and compels the European Commission to act by July 2020.…

Rockets, self-aggrandisement: Good. Cars: OK. Music: Make it stop Living meme Elon Musk has followed up his feelgood hit of 2019, "RIP Harambe", with "Don't Doubt ur Vibe", a saccharine slab of dreamy electropop that we're sure has nothing to do with rubbing Tesla's results in our collective face.…

With apologies to Joy Division The RPG Greetings, traveller, and welcome back to The Register Plays Games, our monthly gaming column. With the festivities behind us and the cold, grey light of January harshing everyone's buzz, it's time to sit down and escape reality. Not sure how I managed to complete this edition following the birth of my second son, but on the other hand I don't lactate so am of very little use to him*. In the meantime, video games.…

Supply-chain hackers now taking aim at kids fighting for democracy, say researchers A Chinese hacking crew which had previously been focusing on industrial and commercial attacks has now involved itself in efforts to suppress protests in Hong Kong.…

Would sir care for an Audi with that Jag? Nearly a year after Malta's Bank of Valletta (BOV) yanked itself from the internet amid a "cyber intrusion", Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) has made three arrests.…

Do you want Russia or China writing treaties on what's cool online? FIC 2020 International progress on state-level so-called cybersecurity "norms" is hopelessly bogged down in an explosion of NGOs and internal United Nations rivalries between two overlapping groups, a French security conference heard this week.…

‘Computer systems must do no harm’ ... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... Something for the Weekend, Sir? Greetings from civilisation, for one more day at least. After tonight, I will no longer be a European citizen but an immigrant of indeterminate status.…

Getting a whiff of unsupported OS too Poor old McDonald's can't seem to catch a break. No sooner had it decided to rename the Blue Screen of Death to "a reboot", more imagery has come to our attention. This time the company's new kiosks were flashing their unmentionables.…

It's Hammer Time On Call Welcome back to On Call, The Register's wall where readers inscribe the antics of users so those on the other end of the phone might consider their career choices.…

Not ready to speak yet? Grab a blind-bird ticket while you can Event Our MCubed 2020 conference call for papers is up and running – and we can’t wait to hear what your organisation has been doing with machine learning, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics.…

'It earns money for freelancers and very small businesses in our rather poor country' says maker of catcher tool Hundreds of thousands of unwanted .uk domains are being dropped by their owners – and picked up by Europeans looking to profit from Blighty's registry system.…

Practice Fusion pocketed kickbacks for crafty alerts and drop-down menu A US software developer must cough up $145m in fines and settlements – for building an application that counseled doctors to prescribe highly addictive pain pills against medical guidelines after it was bribed by painkiller manufacturers to rig the system.…

We'll stop here so you can browse the shelves for books and toys We used to joke Amazon is a cloud server giant with a gift shop in the parking lot. Well, we shall joke no more: two out of every three dollars the Jeff Bezos empire banked worldwide, over the final three months of 2019, came from Amazon Web Services and it has made Amazon a trillion-dollar company as the stock price shot up today.…

Shares up more than six per cent after-hours as Big Blue's Ballmer exits in surprise management shakeup In a surprise announcement on Thursday, IBM named a new CEO, Arvind Krishna.…

Smart websites should be fine – if you're being scummy, beware Next week Google is scheduled to release Chrome 80 to its stable channel, and says only "a very modest amount of breakage" of websites is expected.…

That tech backlash in full: More and more are using the antisocial network Facebook will fork out more than a half-billion dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit against its facial recognition tech.…

A supercharged 2020 ahead? Or is the Electric Emperor a little short on threads? Tesla stocks jumped last night despite a vaguely disappointing set of financials for Q4 of the company's fiscal 2019.…

We love cheap thrills, don't we? Ming-Chi Kuo, the analyst regarded as one of the most accurate soothsayers when it comes to Apple's product direction, is predicting a busy 2020 for Cupertino, with major refreshes across its entire laptop lines, as well as a new budget-oriented iPhone, and a greater selection of accessories.…