The Register

Regulators asked to tackle 'systemic' GDPR breaches A series of challenges to the practices used by the likes of Google in online behavioural advertising have been filed in the UK, Ireland and Poland, alleging that information slurped up on internet users is not only "highly intimate" but also improperly protected.…

Despite, er, you know the drill... Neither Britain's exit from the European Union, nor a trade tariff standoff between China and the US, nor uncertainty caused by talk of recession shall stymie tech spending this year, so say the tea-leaf readers at Gartner.…

UK.gov warned businesses are not prepared for 'burdensome' contract changes The lack of agreement on data flows in a no-deal Brexit is a "significant" concern and possible solutions are "burdensome and costly" to already underprepared businesses, MPs have said.…

There's also another Windows 10 Insider build out Roundup Microsoft continued its grand tradition of delivering developer tools and snapping up tech firms last week.…

Don't take grenades to lunch Oh, Florida man. Will your hijinks ever cease?…

We're taking it seriously, says chief architect Arm has declared that it feels the "weight of our responsibility" as it jumps on board with UK.gov's £70m plans to influence "hardware and chip designs" to enhance security.…

Plus more of the week's networking nuggets Roundup Relative newcomer Arrcus wants to help networking upstarts follow the industry's juggernauts into the 400Gbps Ethernet world with the latest update to its year-old ArcOS network operating system.…

Drunk confessional two years later failed to impress Who, Me? Welcome once more to Who, Me?, El Reg's weekly confessional column for readers with technical mishaps weighing on their minds.…

A. Bad things from 2008 we can't seem to shake A piece of banking malware that first debuted more than a decade ago is once again wrecking havoc.…

...while Apple cuts 200 jobs from its car project, and more from the AI world Roundup Hello, here’s this week’s roundup of all things robot and AI-related. We’re talking delivery robots, self-driving cars, and a new natural language dataset to play with.…

...PHP's PEAR sabotaged for months, and more from the world of infosec Roundup This week we saw Hadoop hacks, Exchange exploits, and Deadpool besting scammers.…

Still, not bad for hardware that was supposed to last 90 days NASA scientists this week celebrated the fact their robot buddy Opportunity has spent the past fifteen years on Mars.…

Nothing to see here, etc etc Analysis Apple has, over the past few years, quietly and successfully patented, in the US at least, various aspects of Swift.…

Takeover leads to consolidation? Unfathomable (adjusted for sarcasm) Analysis In an unprecedented decision that has left tech observers struggling to contain their shock, Facebook has decided to create a common software architecture for its three main apps: Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.…

Moving to high-density DRAM and delaying 96-layer flash DRAM shortages that boosted the coffers of memory makers in recent times looks to be over - at least for now - and the impact can be seen in SK Hynix's top and bottom lines judging by its calendar Q4 financials.…

Theme park's attempt to shoot down lawsuit snubbed by top judges Analysis The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday ruled a family's lawsuit that claims downmarket-Disneyland Six Flags broke the US state's Biometric Privacy Act can proceed.…

House Commerce committee says it has inside knowledge of dodgy regulator antics US telecoms regulator the FCC has been accused of colluding with companies it is supposed to oversee in order to protect a controversial decision over new 5G networks.…

New toys for C++, C# and mobile in tech giant's big bag of early access goodies Developers rejoice! The second preview of Visual Studio 2019 is upon us and contains all manner of goodies for those brave enough to venture into the not-for-production environment.…

Nah, says 39th richest man in world Michael Dell, the 39th richest man in the world, has shocked observers by speaking out against a higher marginal tax rate on people earning more than $10m.…

At up to 2,003bps, it'll be 2021 before we get all the data The New Horizons spacecraft has continued its dribble of data back to Earth with a fresh image of Ultima Thule.…

Chocolate Factory hoping to strike it lucky against Oracle Google has taken the years-long spat with Oracle over its use of Java code in the Android mobile operating system to the US Supreme Court.…

Even Angry Birds' makers asked why so many refunds were being made Facebook has been accused of not caring if game companies diddled children and their parents out of millions of dollars with in-game purchases, following the unsealing of US court documents.…

More stuff disclosed, but code host could rarely tell targets Microsoft-owned code repo GitHub has received twice as many requests for user information in 2018 as the prior year, noting a disproportionate rise in accompanying gag orders.…

Crew Dragon demo flight slated for February SpaceX has finally fired up the engines of the Falcon 9 that is tasked with carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft on its demo flight.…

Ops director talks to El Reg about continential cybersecurity contrivances Interview A senior EU cybersecurity official has said he is “optimistic” about information sharing between the UK and the political bloc continuing after Brexit.…

Revenue drops 20% as market slackens, with worse to come Western Digital is about to go into cost cutting mode to carve out $800m in savings, after reporting shrinking revenues of $4.23bn for its second fiscal 2019 quarter, down by a fifth compared to the year ago period.…

But thousands opting out in 'backlash', says privacy group HMRC's database of Brits' voiceprints has grown by 2 million since June – but campaign group Big Brother Watch has claimed success as 160,000 people turned the taxman's requests down.…

Want expansion? Tough. You're using it wrong. It is 35 years since computer buyers were first able to take a glimpse into a fruity future without having to remortgage for an Apple Lisa. Happy birthday, Mac.…

Earlier investigation would've been 'premature' The US government has confirmed it is investigating whether Amazon's decision to rehire a former Pentagon staffer poses a conflict of interest to the $10bn JEDI cloud contract.…

You can't eavesdrop on these whispers MIT boffins have used low-power lasers to beam audio directly into a subject's ear.…

Meanwhile, Canada to sign 5G R&D collab with Nokia Reports that University of California Berkeley will remove Huawei kit from its networks are overblown, the institute has told The Register.…

Programming skills assessment tweak after 2017 malpractice GCSE computer science will be exam-only, the UK's education watchdog has said, after concluding it isn’t possible to fairly and reliably assess the secondary school qualification any other way.…

Three: 'A number of customers' would've seen performance choke due to 'error' Vodafone has fingered a subcontractor after it was presented with evidence showing the mobile firm broadcasting on Three UK's piece of the 1,800MHz band at a cell site at London's Gatwick airport.…

Think of the ones you leave behind Something for the Weekend, Sir? This place is a mess. No, worse than that: it's a disaster area.…

Sticky balls? Wash your mouse out On Call Friday mornings can mean only one thing: El Reg’s weekly instalment of On Call, where readers share their tales of users’, um, naivety.…

Defend your cloud data from military-style attacks Promo If you think an intrusion kill chain sounds like really bad news, you are absolutely right. A kill chain is a military term for the structure of an attack: target identification, force dispatch, order to attack, and finally destruction of the target.…

Computers 10 - 1 Humanity Analysis AlphaStar, DeepMind’s latest AI bot, crushed professional gamers playing popular strategy video game StarCraft II during a demonstration broadcast online Thursday.…

Chipzilla laments weak IoT, looming server gloom, still promises 10nm proper by Q4 Intel saw some of the shine wiped off its 2018 fiscal year as the chip giant closed out the year with a disappointing fourth quarter and warnings of lean times to come.…

Easily swapped hashed passwords gives Domain Admin rights via API call. Fix may land next month Microsoft Exchange appears to be currently vulnerable to a privilege escalation attack that allows any user with a mailbox to become a Domain Admin.…

Apple fans lured into installing malware via crafty JavaScript A strain of malware has been clocked using steganography to run malicious JavaScript on Macs via images in online banner ads, it was claimed this week.…

It's 2019. Banned fascist symbols are all the rage, these days The internet will make space for South Sudan this month, with plans to create a new top-level domain for the world's newest nation.…

What's this on the label? 'Do not wear in actual space' Fresh from its successful jaunt to space, Virgin Galactic has clambered into a pair of sweatpants with sportswear firm Under Armour.…

Dash it all... Fix rushed out after iOS 12.1.3 security patch collides with US telco Sprint subscribers using recent model iPhones have been reporting cellular connectivity problems following the installation of Apple's iOS 12.1.3 security update, which was released on Tuesday.…

You'll have to pay for the privilege, though Microsoft Windows 10 users are spoiled for choice when it comes to Linux these days, and now open-source startup Whitewater Foundry has added yet another option for penguinistas living in a Windows world.…

Webex, security, IoT systems also need patches Cisco's irregular patch cycle has come round again and this time the focus is on the company's SD-WAN product.…

In the red corner we have Tweedledum and in the blue, Tweedledee Yet another playground dust-up between Nutanix and VMware has erupted over a vitriolic sales campaigns, with Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey calling on VMware to stop being a "bully".…

CNCF project pulls on its big-project boots, will look for work in IT sector On Thursday, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) plans to announce the graduation of its fourth open source project, the CoreDNS Kubernetes DNS server system.…

Didn't see that coming Google is to appeal the €50m data protection fine handed down to it by the French data protection agency earlier this week.…

Commish laments 'illogical' limitation on code compliance The UK government must urgently expand Blighty's surveillance camera rules to cover the NHS, and properly resource the nation's strategy on the rapidly increasing use of cams.…

And an IPO might mean just that... Reports that Toshiba Memory Corporation plans to bring its IPO forward from 2021 to this year keep coming: it is said to be slated for the second half of this year.…