The Register

Tripping into a rainbow of colour and cockup On Call Welcome to On Call, that time of the week where you can take time out from fretting about the days just past and nod sympathetically/take delight in tales of those that must smile and nod before the wrath of the user.…

Burn baby burn! The RPG Greetings, traveller, and welcome back to The Register Plays Games, our monthly gaming column. Happy birthday to me and merry Winterfest to you, gamers of the world moonlighting as IT pros. And let's not forget to have a bountiful New Year. It's been an absolute blast writing this thing for the past eight months, so thanks for reading. We round out 2019 with a look at one of its big success stories – Disco Elysium.…

With great power comes great irresponsibility On Call Friday is upon us, and with it another On Call story from those poor souls who have to answer the phone when everything goes wrong. Not all heroes wear capes and, as we'll see, remember to ward their Linux servers from an enthusiastic boss.…

But my emails! On Call Friday is upon us, bringing with it the promise of an early finish, the pub and a carefree weekend. Unless, of course, you are one of those unfortunates condemned to deal with... users. Welcome to On Call.…

I'm ready to throw it all in Something for the Weekend, Sir? Brussels sprouts make excellent projectiles, but only if they're boiled and undercooked. This much I discovered from experience as a youngster in the school refectory as we drew towards this festive time of year. Ho ho ho, what japes.…

The Register's spoiler-free take on the last of the Skywalker movies (for now, at least) Comment The Register attended a midnight showing of the latest entry in Disney's cash-cow franchise, hoping for a satisfying conclusion to 42 years of cinema trips. Did we throw our popcorn in the air with joy or stamp our feet like petulant toddlers?…

Community service for 'Turkish Crime Family' wannabe big dog A 22-year-old Londoner has been given 300 hours of community service and a State-enforced bedtime after trying to blackmail Apple with hundreds of millions of previously compromised login credentials.…

Meanwhile, in the UK: Rocket engine testing? Here? We'd really rather not... Roundup While the travails of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner may have captured space fans' attention, there was plenty of other fun and games happening in the world of rockets as 2019 came to a close.…

Son of Care.Data? Remember what happened to that first initiative. It didn't end well Senior healthcare techies have warned England's National Health Service (NHS) that it will need to be open with industry professionals and the wider general public as it forges ahead with the collation and potential sale of millions of Brits' medical records via a mega database.…

Do the sums before adopting Analysis AWS's automated code review and profiling tool CodeGuru drew substantial interest when it was announced at the vendor's re:Invent shindig in Las Vegas this month.…

A decade later, has LibreOffice succeeded? With business still hooked on Microsoft Office, not really The LibreOffice team is testing the first release candidate of version 6.4, which is set for release at the end of January.…

Redmond celebrates holidays with new toys and a tease of 2020 Roundup Welcome to the last Microsoft round-up of 2019. While it may seem that the Windows mines of Redmond have been deserted by Nadella's minions ahead of the holidays, there remains one more roundup before the delight of 2020 falls upon us.…

Former state-owned telco snaffles ad tech biz for undisclosed sum BT today announced it’s acquiring the remnants of InLink Limited — a profoundly controversial outdoor adtech company — after it entered administration last month.…

Life is but a dream(liner) as 737 Max maker parachutes in new leader Boeing CEO Dennis A. Muilenburg has stepped down from his position "effectively immediately" following 14 months of headwinds triggered by two fatal crashes of the now grounded 737 Max line.…

$1,500 actually cheap for foldable phone, unless you buy it off the back of a, um, from an Escobar We've got some bad news for the deeper-pocketed nostalgia-tinged tech fans out there: Motorola is pushing back the launch of its foldable reboot of the Motorola Razr.…

Nobody at The Reg guessed (alleged) Clash of Clans microtransactions Freemium mobile game Clash of Clans is perhaps best known for its enthusiastic use of celebrity endorsements in its advertisements, which have starred Liam Neeson, Christoph Waltz, and James Corden.…

Connectivity Cluedo: It was the hi-vis, in the building site, with the digger Some Virgin Media broadband customers remain free from the shackles of connectivity today following some over-enthusiastic digging last Thursday.…

Unauthorised users able to perform 'arbitrary code execution' A critical vulnerability found in Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Citrix Gateway (formerly known as Netscaler ADC and Netscaler Gateway) means businesses with apps published using these technologies may be exposing their internal network to unauthorised access.…

Yes, people of UAE. That free govt-approved VoIP app that replaced all the banned encrypted chat apps A popular UAE messaging app has been reportedly used by the country's government to spy on its population. This app, called ToTok, passed all the usual Google Play and Apple App Store checks. Huawei even promoted it via social media.…

Making lemonade out of lemons with Calypso Boeing's borked capsule, the CST-100 Starliner, successfully returned to Earth yesterday while engineers scrambled to work out what went wrong, and managers rushed to justify the truncated mission.…

Half a million docs, including patient names and medical records left at back of premises A pharmacy that left around half a million documents, including customers' personal information and medical data, in unlocked storage at the back of its premises, has been fined £275,000 - a financial penalty the ICO has issued under the General Data Protection Regulation.…

El Reg pulls up a chair next to the fire and chats to box giant's CEO Antonio Neri Interview Migrating your data to the machine that is Amazon Web Services is a little like booking into the Hotel California, the title track from The Eagles late 1970's album of the same name, the rub being that customers, like guests at the hotel, can check out anytime they like but never truly leave.…

Look before you leap, and by leap, we mean run del *.* Who, Me? Welcome to Who, Me?, The Register's weekly dive into the murky waters of the reader confession pool. Read on to see if this week's tale triggers a guilty memory or two from you.…

Learn about everything Nutanix and win prizes in the process Promo California-based cloud computing company Nutanix wants to invite you to its winter Cloud Chalet to watch a six-part series of videos on hot topics such as end-user computing, databases, and cloud.…

Including: Nasty Mac malware and gas-pump infections Roundup Here's a catch-up of security news beyond everything else we've covered.…

What a clock-up Boeing’s first attempt to get its Starliner capsule to dock with the International Space Station has failed due to a software blunder. The unit was carrying cargo to the orbiting science lab though Boeing hopes to use it to send people into the obsidian void at some point.…

Various bits and bytes ahead of the Christmas break Roundup As much of the Western world winds down for the Christmas period, here's a summary of this week's news from those machine-learning boffins who haven’t broken into the eggnog too early.…

Payer cette petite amende, s'il vous plaît Google was today ordered by France's monopoly watchdog to cough up a €150m ($166m) fine for abusing its "dominant position in the search advertising market."…

They're not 'immune', they just have the 'power' to not be punished It’s perfectly legal for British spies to break the law, Britain’s secretive spy court has ruled – making a mockery of other laws intended to keep eavesdropping agencies and others under effective control.…

Nothing on you? Ask a friend The owner of Flickr has once again brought out the begging bowl after telling the service's legion of users that company accounts are still daubed with red.…

WebAssembly key tech for replacing native apps, say respondents Mozilla has released the first "Web DNA Report", in which devs identify their top needs in terms of web development - and browser compatibility is the biggest issue by far, especially when it comes to supporting our old friend Microsoft Internet Explorer.…

Brummy bobbies particularly careless, apparently Hapless UK plod have lost 2,600 mobile phones, laptops, police radios, and other assorted gadgetry over the past three years, according to research from Parliament Street Think Tank.…

Microservices and cloud pioneer Sam Newman to deliver keynote Event We’re thrilled to announce the first tranche of speakers for Continuous Lifecycle London 2020, which will bring you face to face with some of the finest minds in DevOps, containers, CI/CD, and serverless.…

Take a break from calling for the end of e2e, so they can switch encrypted chat apps It's not just the European Union the UK's ruling party wishes to leave. According to the Guardian, the recently victorious Conservative party is switching from WhatsApp to Signal, in order to accommodate its new influx of MPs.…

Luckily, it's not the night before Christmas. Actually, it's worse Updated HSBC’s mobile and online banking services went absent without leave in the UK last night and are missing in action again this morning, just as Brits begin panicking about any last minute buys they need to make for Chrimbo.…

Lithuanian bloke gets half a decade for the mother of all phishing schemes A Lithuanian hacker will spend the next five years behind bars for masterminding a massive $120m (£92.05m) business email compromise involving Facebook and Google.…

PXC 500-II comes for Sony and co's expensive audio breakfasts armed with... oh no, a microUSB Review In airports and train stations, it's not unusual to encounter weary corporate warriors sporting headphones that cost upwards of £300. This premium segment of the audio market is largely dominated by two players: Bose's QuietComfort II cans, and the Sony WH-1000XM3. Could their time at the top be coming to an end?…

And by the way, sorry about Swift and Kitura Interview What does a £63m investment even mean in a country where you don't need to declare cash flow?…

The day a Reg reader learned that honesty (and cheese) is its own reward Who, Me? Ho ho ho, behold our bulging bag of reader confessions in The Register's regular Who, Me? feature. Today we learn, once again, that the boss is not always all bad.…

Poisoned movie feeds will do more damage than an angry Dalek Movie fans eager for an early peek at the new Star Wars installment are putting themselves at risk of malware infection.…

FOIA lawsuit demands data on Tactical Terrorism Response Teams When Andreas Gal, CEO of Silk Labs and a US citizen, returned to the US from a business trip in Europe last year, he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for secondary screening. He claims he was threatened with unwarranted charges, denied access to an attorney, and told he had to unlock his electronic devices before he would be allowed to leave.…

Dial-a-ride dev opens wallet over sexual harassment and retaliation case Uber has agreed to pay $4.4m to settle claims it allowed employees to be sexually harassed and then allowed retaliation against them when they came forward.…

And you thought politics was winding down for Christmas The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has suffered a data breach after allegedly having 143 party email accounts accessed amid demands made by blackmailers, the High Court in London has been told (PDF).…

Tried Svelte yet? Perhaps you should According to a sizeable group of coders who responded to a new State of JavaScript survey, the React framework is not only the most used front-end framework, it also has the highest satisfaction rating.…

Two less lovely phone booths in the world, and it's going to be fine Who knew payphones could be so controversial? The central London council of Westminster has won a court battle against New World Payphones, preventing it from deploying two billboard-cum-payphones in the heart of London's Marylebone Road.…

Do election promises mean anything? The Right Honourable Sir John Redwood is supporting contractors in their battle to overturn IR35 tax rules before they hit the private sector, demanding the new Tory government meets its pledge to review the legislation.…

Reg's Logowatch team sad to report UK outsourcing baddie didn't get too creative Capita is launching a consulting arm called ... err ... Capita Consulting - at least we can get behind the sensible name it chose instead of going with something like Indigo Egret or Seventh Wave.…

Sticky grip of sole more efficient for sweeps than for gamers Puma is perhaps best known for its sportswear and trainers. However, it's getting into a new market – eSports.…

Catch up with public sector developments and more Promo If you missed this year's re:Invent – the annual Amazon Web Services cloud-computing mega-conference held in Las Vegas at the beginning of December – you can catch up with some of the highlights in London, England, on 22 January.…

All Chromium browsers are equal, but some smell more equal than others Browser maker Vivaldi celebrated its last release of 2019 with a handbags-at-dawn move that will see it don a Google Chrome disguise.…