The Register

One eight-person publisher says it'll be forced to pay $1.5M WORLD WAR FEE The Trump administration's tariffs are famously raising the prices of high-ticket products with lots of chips, like iPhones and cars, but they're also hurting small businesses like game makers. In this case, we're not talking video games, but the old-fashioned kind you play at your kitchen table....

Reg hack pines for simpler times, then tries to recapture them Sometimes, the size and complexity of modern OSes - even the FOSS ones - is enough to make us miss the days when an entire bootable OS could fit in three files, when configuring a PC for production meant editing two plain-text files, which contained maybe a dozen lines each. DOS couldn't do very much, but the little it did was enough. From the early 1980s for a decade or two, much of the world ran on DOS. Then Windows 3 came along, which is arguably the point where the rot set in....

Moscow likely to respawn elsewhere The British government is banning the export of video game controllers to Russia, claiming these can be repurposed for piloting drones on the frontline in Ukraine....

Er, are we sure we want to outsource the welding? Rise of the machines Construction workers could soon find themselves laboring alongside 20-foot (6 meter) tall AI-powered autonomous robots capable of welding, carpentry, and 3D printing buildings. What could possibly go wrong?...

Infosec is a team sport ... unless you're in the White House Opinion Just when it seems they couldn't be that careless, US officials tasked with defending the nation go and do something else that puts American critical infrastructure, national security, and troops' lives in danger....

What next for US-bankrolled vulnerability tracker? It's edging closer to a more independent, global future Kent Landfield, a founding member of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program and member of the board, learned through social media that the system he helped create was just hours away from losing funding....

GreyNoise says it is the kind of activity that typically precedes new vulnerability disclosures Ivanti VPN users should stay alert as IP scanning for the vendor's Connect Secure and Pulse Secure systems surged by 800 percent last week, according to threat intel biz GreyNoise....

Where have we heard this before? Feb security update needs its own fix More than one month after complaints starting flying, Microsoft has fixed a Windows bug that caused some Remote Desktop sessions to freeze....

Biofuel lowers pollutants, but won't eliminate 'em, and could mean DCs compete for supplies Datacenter operators are being encouraged to adopt hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as a replacement for diesel in generators, however, analysts say the sustainable stand-in is not emission-free and has its own drawbacks....

One step forward and one step back as earlier hopes of progress dashed by latest update Marks & Spencer has paused online orders for customers via its website and app as the UK retailer continues to wrestle with an ongoing "cyber incident."...

German software giant paywalls details, but experts piece together the clues SAP's latest out-of-band patch is for a perfect 10/10 bug in NetWeaver that experts suspect could have already been exploited as a zero-day....

Remember when NASA was laser focused on that? It was 35 years ago when the Hubble Space Telescope deployed into orbit, sent by a space agency facing an existential crisis. Thirty-five years on, not much seems to have changed....

Still plans to invest $75B in CapEx this year as unable to meet capacity demand Google says the mega capital splurge on datacenters in recent years is putting more strain on its balance sheet due to rising depreciation costs, yet it still plans to splash $75 billion on bit barns in 2025....

Hello, operator? Book me to Memphis, Tennessee Interview For all the talk of the "agentic era" from AI vendors like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and just about everyone else in the space, corporate use of the technology is still tentative. Virgin Atlantic has been conducting flight tests of its website with an AI agent called Operator, and early results are promising, pointing the way toward how agents might actually be used to help customers book flights....

Successful qualification run for P160C solid-fuel motor in South American spaceport A qualification version of the P160C solid-fuel motor was successfully tested at the European Spaceport in French Guiana on April 24, paving the way for heftier payloads on the Ariane 6 and Vega rockets....

Taxpayers foot bill to get to new platform as Fujitsu package balloons to 2.44 billion The UK's Post Office would have to cope with suboptimal IT, increased risks and costs, and reduced reporting accuracy if it didn't receive 136 million ($180 million) in government aid to keep its disastrous Horizon system running and replace it with a more modern platform....

Third-party data supplier also in hot water with Brit regulator over consent issues Britain's data privacy watchdog has slapped a fine of 90k ($120k) on a business that targeted people with intrusive marketing phone calls, despite them being registered with the official "Do Not Call" opt-out service....

Volts make jolts On Call By the time Friday morning rolls around, starting the day with a stimulating beverage feels like a fine idea. And so does delivering a freshly brewed installment of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which you share tales of tech support triumph and torture....

Because coding phishing sites from scratch is a real pain in the neck Darcula, a cybercrime outfit that offers a phishing-as-a-service kit to other criminals, this week added AI capabilities to its kit that help would-be vampires spin up phishing sites in multiple languages more efficiently....

Thousands face ax, more given RTO orders in quest to suck less Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is swinging the ax again, with another round of layoffs incoming as Chipzilla tries to reboot its core....

Cursor, Codium makers lose access as add-on goes exclusive Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) no longer works with derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor - and some developers are crying foul....

At least it wasn't Harvard Yale New Haven Health has notified more than 5.5 million people that their private details were likely stolen by miscreants who broke into the healthcare system's network last month....

Watch your partitions - GPT and dual-boot don't always mix While The Reg FOSS desk was on spring break, both the latest interim Ubuntu and latest Fedora debuted....

This one weird trick can stop Windows updates dead in their tracks Turns out Microsoft's latest patch job might need a patch of its own, again. This time, the culprit is a mysterious inetpub folder quietly deployed by Redmond, now hijacked by a security researcher to break Windows updates....

UK org backing it promises 'legal certainty' for devs, money for creators... but is it too late? A UK non-profit is planning to introduce a new licensing model which will allow developers of large language models to use copyrighted training data while paying the publishers it represents....

Collecting data from solo players is a Far Cry from being necessary, says noyb For anyone who's ever been frustrated by the need to go online to play a single-player video game, the European privacy specialists at noyb have heard you, and they've filed a complaint against Ubisoft in Austria dealing specifically with the issue....

'Inventory accumulation' as vendors hoard HBM amid tariff and other pressures South Korean memory maker SK Hynix is reporting a sales bounce due to the demand for AI systems, helped by US businesses stockpiling HBM supplies amid tariff uncertainty....

Something broke on Windows 11 24H2, but dev who discovered it tells El Reg this time Microsoft's not to blame Microsoft's Windows 11 24H2 update is frustrating some users, but it isn't the operating system at fault this time. Instead, it's down to a 20-year-old error in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas....

Alleges semi designer tried to obstruct Qualy's build of Arm-compatible custom cores Qualcomm has amended its complaint against Arm in a 2024 lawsuit, adding more allegations about Arm's purported breach of license agreements and accusing it of "misrepresenting" their relationship by intending to make its own rival chips....

Get a new, clean (maybe suspiciously empty) install up to speed - and keep it there When you install a fresh, clean copy of Windows - say, if you're switching to the LTSC edition - Ninite is here to kickstart provisioning the new OS....

Extreme weather is such a problem when building bit barns... hmmm, wonder what could be causing that? When it comes to building datacenters, reducing the environmental impact of the project is still not seen as a major concern - it is lower on the list than cost of equipment and materials, skills shortages, a possible downturn in projects, and even bad weather....

Customers told to expect further delays as contactless payments still down UK high street retailer Marks & Spencer says contactless payments are still down following its "cyber incident" and order delays are likely to continue....

Cybercriminals are targeting software shops, accountants, lawyers The percentage of confirmed data breaches involving third-party relationships doubled last year as cybercriminals increasingly exploited weak links in supply chains and partner ecosystems....

Software slingers from Redis to Teradata are bolting on smarts to stay relevant in GenAI era About two years ago, popular cache database Redis was among a wave of vendors that added vector search capabilities to their platforms, driven by the surge of interest in generative AI....

Back of the nyet! Russian soldiers are being targeted with an Android app specially altered to pinpoint their location and scan their phones for files, with the ability to exfiltrate sensitive documents if instructed....

Lenovo brings its Neptune cold plates to servers packing sixth-gen Xeons to run VMware, Nutanix, and AzureStack Hyperconverged infrastructure most often involves a collection of modest 2U servers powered by mid-range processors that aren't particularly challenging to operate. But Lenovo's new models packing Xeon 6 processors may need liquid cooling....

Wipro was forced to pause an active SAP project due to client's jitters India's big four IT services players are all concerned that the USA's new tariffs regime may see some of their customers spend less on tech - but later spend more to cope with whatever changes are needed to compete in a changed global trade system....

Biggest threat to America's critical infrastructure? Ransomware Digital scammers and extortionists bilked businesses and individuals in the US out of a "staggering" $16.6 billion last year, according to the FBI - the highest losses recorded since bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) started tracking them 25 years ago....

Big Blue downplays impact of Elon-gated cost-cutting IBM beat Wall Street's expectations for both revenue and income in the first quarter of 2025, but its stock price still dropped more than six percent in after-hours trading....

You. Will. Love. The. LLM. The latest update to Microsoft 365 Copilot brings AI-powered search, so-called reasoning agents, and a new Agent Store. Some users already have access to certain features, while others may have to wait through May....

Tech giants don't need smartphone mics to target adverts - your insurer just gives your data away, anyway US health insurance giant Blue Shield of California handed sensitive health information belonging to as many as 4.7 million members to Google's advertising empire, likely without these individuals' knowledge or consent....

Elon's not the only one sounding the alarm over the AI giant's cash grab A group of AI heavyweights and ex-OpenAI staffers are urging the attorneys general of California and Delaware to block the ChatGPT shop's latest restructuring into a for-profit corporation....

ChatGPT maker to join line of suitors if Chocolate Factory forced to offload browser OpenAI's head of product for ChatGPT has flung the company's hat into the ring as a potential suitor for Google's Chrome browser should the search giant be forced to divest itself of the application....

Now that AI is invading classrooms and homework assignment, students need to learn reasoning more than ever Students are increasingly turning to AI to help them with coursework, leaving academics scrambling to adjust their teaching practices or debating how to ban it altogether....

A mystery thief and a critical CVE involved in crypto cash grab Many versions of the Ripple ledger (XRPL) official NPM package are compromised with malware injected to steal cryptocurrency....

All aboard the hype train The security industry loves its buzzwords, and this is always on full display at the annual RSA Conference event in San Francisco. Don't believe us? Take a lap on the expo floor, and you'll be bombarded with enough acronyms and over-the-top claims to send you straight to the nearest bar, which will likely serve specialty cocktails with names like The Great CASB and Firewall Fizz....

Officials seek assurances that bot won't be used for military applications Elon Musk says supply chain disruption in China held up delivery of a key component for Tesla's "Optimus" robot, with authorities reportedly demanding an export license and guarantees about military applications....

CFO says 'a cushion of several thousand employees we can play with' is a good thing in uncertain times SAP says 3,000 people have left the company in its restructuring plan but that it will wait to see if more employees might be affected after US tariff policies introduced global economic uncertainty....

Bad timing, claim industry watchers, who say rulings could seriously upset an already delicate US-EU relationship Meta and Apple have earned the dubious honor of being the first companies fined for non-compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act, which experts say could inflame tensions between US President Donald Trump and the European bloc....

Smarter agents, continuous updates, and the eternal struggle to prove ROI As Nvidia releases its NeMo microservices to embed AI agents into enterprise workflows, research has found that almost half of businesses are seeing only minor gains from their investments in AI....