The Register

High-energy weapon proves its mettle in testing The British Army has successfully destroyed flying drones for the first time using a high-energy laser mounted onan armoredvehicle. If perfected, the technology could form an effective counter-measure against drone attacks....

Few websites actually respect the option, says Mozilla When Firefox 135 is released in February, it'll ship with one less feature: Mozilla plans to remove the Do Not Track toggle from its Privacy and Security settings....

No word from the FBI about where they are hiding aliens or UFOs Unidentified flying objects said to be the size of sports utility vehicles have been spotted flying over parts of the northeastern US, prompting investigations by law enforcement and the FBI as elected officials urge the public not to panic....

If Zuck and other Big Tech players pay news publishers, their bills vanish Australia has created a tax that only big tech companies must pay - but which they can also legally avoid by paying money to Aussie news publishers....

Acquires two companies that help those on the nice list keep naughty list types at bay Citrix has gone on a European shopping trip, and come home with its bag of gifts bulging thanks to a pair of major buys: infosec outfits deviceTRUST and Strong Network....

Long March-8A improves payload by forty percent and comes just a month after Long March 12 debut China is readying an upgraded and more capable rocket for its first launch, to advance its ambition of creating large constellations of satellites....

Did you get your loot box? Consumers tricked into making unwanted purchases in Epic Games' popular Fortnite title should see refunds start to hit their accounts this week, according to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)....

Something called 'Baltra' expected to make its debut in 2026, perhaps with tech both already use Apple is reportedly working with chip giant Broadcom to develop a custom server processor to power the AI services and features built into its operating systems....

Sen. Wyden blasts FCC's 'failure' amid Salt Typhoon hacks US telecoms carriers would be required to implement minimum cyber security standards and ensure their systems are not susceptible to hacks by nation-state attackers - like Salt Typhoon - under legislation proposed by senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)....

Finance house finds x86 giant's lack of strategy disturbing Intel's troubles continue to compound after S&P Global on Tuesday downgraded its credit rating, citing concerns about the chipmaker's pace of recovery and management uncertainty....

What's an influencer to do? Updated Meta's techies are likely having a bad day as the internet titan's Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads, and Instagram are suffering some degree of downtime globally....

Belly-busting biz says it's been hit by cowardly custards Doughnut slinger Krispy Kreme has admitted to an attack that has left many customers unable to order online....

Chip imports up more than 14% this year in anticipation of fresh restrictions China's semiconductor imports were up more than 14 percent in 2024 as companies in the country stockpiled ahead of widely expected fresh restrictions from Washington and pressure grows to develop local alternatives instead....

Microsoft squashes eSCL bug There is good news for Microsoft customers seeking to attach a scanner or fax machine to their Windows 11 hardware. Support for eSCL has been fixed, and a compatibility hold will be lifted....

Chocolate Factory's latest multimodal model aims to power more trusted AI agents Google on Wednesday released Gemini 2.0 Flash, the latest addition to its AI model lineup, in the hope that developers will create agentic applications in AI Studio and Vertex AI....

AI assistant goes native - sort of - for Windows Insiders Copilot has gone native for Windows Insiders and comandeered a popular keyboard shortcut in the process....

The Register stumbles upon the place self-driving cabs appear to be rusting away into history Pictures General Motors is winding up its autonomous taxi biz Cruise....

Patch up, everyone - that admin portal is mighty attractive to your friendly cyberattacker Ivanti just put out a security advisory warning of three critical vulnerabilities in its Cloud Services Application (CSA), including a perfect 10....

Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before the capsule is troubled by a crew It is ten years since NASA sent the Orion spacecraft into space on the Exploration Flight Test-1 mission....

Mid-November release will be maintained for 'several years' Last month's new version of the Linux kernel, 6.12, has been confirmed as the newest LTS release... which also marks the end of the line for kernel 4.19....

2025 looming large as Blue Ring pathfinder prepped for liftoff Blue Origin has confirmed its New Glenn rocket is on track for launch before the end of 2024....

Australia's archive, that is - it was an Aussie who wrote it The theme music to iconic British sci-fi TV show Doctor Who has been immortalized by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive....

Also sanctions his employer - an outfit called Sichuan Silence linked to Ragnarok ransomware The US Departments of Treasury and Justice have named a Chinese business and one of its employees as the actors behind the 2020 exploit of a zero-day flaw in Sophos firewalls...

Elon Musk's satellite internet service asked to explain who used its service to navigate to remote islands Police in India are demanding Starlink turn over customer details to assist its investigation into the country's biggest ever single seizure of narcotics....

Mullenweg and co ordered to restore WP Engine's access to wordpress.org and stop touching WordPress installations WordPress hosting firm Automattic and its CEO Matthew Mullenweg have been ordered to stop interfering with the business of rival WP Engine....

Funding to support development of memory vendor's $125B fab expansion in New York and Idaho American memory vendor Micron will receive $6.1 billion in CHIPS Act funding under a deal finalized by the US Commerce Department on Tuesday....

With two legal wins and one secret settlement on the books, the odds are in the automaker's favor Tesla is facing a lawsuit alleging its claims about Autopilot and Full Self Driving's (FSD) capabilities contributed to a fatal crash, giving the courts yet another chance to hash out claims similar to those in previous lawsuits....

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, patching was done with the click of a mouse Patch Tuesday Microsoft hasn't added too much coal to the stocking this Patch Tuesday, with just 72 fixes, only one of which scored more than nine on the CVSS threat ranking scale....

Boeing-Bell V-22 can't outfly its checkered past, it seems The US Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have grounded their fleet of Boeing-Bell-made Osprey V-22s on safety grounds....

Strong year ends with a dip, but Ellison signs Meta deal to boost AI cred Oracle shares tumbled around 7 percent on Monday after Q2 2025 revenues disappointed financial markets....

Boffins devise BadRAM attack to pilfer secrets from SEV-SNP encrypted memory Researchers have found that the security mechanism AMD uses to protect virtual machine memory can be bypassed with $10 of hardware - and perhaps not even that....

Buckle up, because limbed creatures are about to get weird OpenAI has put its video generation tool, Sora, into the hands of ChatGPT Plus and Pro users....

Thousands of servers targeted while customers wait for patches Researchers at security shop Huntress are seeing mass exploitation of a vulnerability affecting three Cleo file management products, even on patched systems....

Sounds like th-aorta get this sorted quickly A manufacturer of devices used in heart surgeries says it's dealing with "a cybersecurity incident" that bears all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack....

Quiet festive season for admins, but next year will be busy Microsoft has pushed the final Cumulative Update for Exchange Server 2019 into 2025....

As 2027 support deadline looms, German vendor puts faith in on-trend tech to help SIs do more with less SAP has claimed that its systems integrator partners will avoid a skills crunch in the looming 2027 support deadline by using GenAI to get to grips with legacy software....

Streamer's trademark dramatic style takes on Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde A documentary examining the 2016 Bitfinex burglars hits Netflix, bringing the curious case to living rooms for the first time....

Whoever takes over has some tough decisions to make Analysis There has already been much speculation about who will succeed Pat Gelsinger as Intel chief, but perhaps a more pertinent question is whether the company wants to continue to be a manufacturer or join the ranks of fabless semiconductor firms....

Python security developer-in-residence decries use of bots that 'cannot understand code' Software vulnerability submissions generated by AI models have ushered in a "new era of slop security reports for open source" - and the devs maintaining these projects wish bug hunters would rely less on results produced by machine learning assistants....

And it only took four months, tut WhatsApp has fixed a problem with its View Once feature, designed to protect people's privacy with automatically disappearing pictures and videos....

Wants to defer shutdown order that takes effect a day before the presidential inauguration Made-in-China social network TikTok has appealed the decision to shut it down in the US, arguing that the deadline for its destruction should be deferred to give another regime a chance to review its case....

'I am carefree, I like to joke,' says guy who fines workers if they glance at phones during meetings The CEO of Chinese tech giant Alibaba's entertainment division fines his staff if they look at their phones during meetings - a little nugget he revealed during a speech that included insults sprayed at both colleagues and customers....

'Navix' follows OpenELA rules, comes with ten years support, and is already used in production at scale Korean web giant Naver has gone into the operating system business, releasing its very own Linux distribution....

If this were a US scandal, we'd cal it 'Gategate' Malaysia's automated border control equipment - known as e-gates or automates - glitched out over the weekend, leaving travelers crossing the very busy border between Johor Bahru and Singapore required to spend hours waiting in line....

McDonald's worker called it in, cops swooped, found 'gun, suppressor, manifesto' Police in Pennsylvania have arrested a man suspected of shooting dead the CEO of insurer UnitedHealthcare in New York City, thanks to a McDonald's employee who recognized the suspect in a burger joint - and largely without help from technology....

Starlink satellites might annoy astronomers, but at least they're easy to spot Space debris tracking specialist Neuraspace added another optical telescope to extend satellite tracking over the Southern Hemisphere....

Many users unhappy with current state of search, want to know why this got priority Reddit's internal search engine is often criticized as one of the site's weakest features but the platform claims AI integration will make it "faster, smarter, and more relevant."...

No word yet on who was snooped on. Any bets? Chinese cyberspies recorded "very senior" US political figures' calls, according to White House security boss Anne Neuberger....

More Windows Insiders get to see if the snapshotter is fixed Microsoft is widening the rollout of the Recall Preview to include Dev Channel Windows Insiders running AMD and Intel-based Copilot+ PCs....

Is the industry ready to be tested if the unidentified deadly pathogen spreads beyond rural Kwango Province? A mystery disease with a fatality rate higher than COVID-19 has broken out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and while the global pandemic risk is currently considered to be low, some of the world's biggest tech giants may want to dust off those pandemic supply chain disruption plans....