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Choc Factory: Don't be in the dark, dear netizen – use our privacy tool. LOL Google would like netizens to believe that the vast multinational has bolstered "privacy" controls on its services today. But you'd be wrong to swallow that line.…

Three-way boost as hardware, software and service get updated Pure Storage is announcing a fresh all-flash array family with capacity and performance boosts, updated cloud and analytics-based support, as well as enhancing its upgradability business model.…

Samsung ponders thwarted efforts to climb up the stack Analysis You’ve heard that “when Wall Street sneezes, the world catches cold"*, and there are dozens of variations. But perhaps the line needs to be brought up to date. When a large technology platform company dozes off, companies that rely on it for innovation feel the chill – and the chill can be fatal.…

Not confident plans to address tech woes are enough – sources The Co-operative Bank's creaking IT is so shaky it should be sold off, according to senior government officials.…

Flirty firms stop sniffing each other's asses and get down to business Intel has subsumed Altera for $16.7bn (£11bn), ending months of “will they, won't they” takeover chatter.…

‘We’ll act and think differently’ The IT world doesn’t understand the telco industry and Nokia is here to save the day, with the launch of its AirFrame Data Centre Solution, which aims to wrest business from traditional data centres.…

PLUS: They slurp up phone and email records in 96% of cases, FOI request reveals Police forces across Blighty made more than 700,000 communications data access requests in the space of three years, responses to an FOI request from Big Brother Watch have revealed.…

There’s high speed broadband up north Regional telco AQL is looking to get Electronic Communications Code (ECC) approval for installing its services, including free Wi-Fi around Leeds, mobile data services, and very, very fast fibre in the ground.…

Could they work together? Yeah, why not Logically nestled just above Infrastructure-as-a-Service and just beneath the Software-as-a-Service applications it seeks to support, we find Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).…

Spanish crooner's tongue and vocal cords intact, though Singer Enrique Iglesias came off worse from a scrap with a UAV during a concert in Tijuana, Mexico, over the weekend.…

Repeater retweets mobile signals so hamlets don't have to wing it Vodafone is installing mobile cell sites in bird boxes, although our feathered friends will not be allowed inside.…

HTC, EE and infosec bod all agree: We have no idea EE has assured a customer that a pre-installed app found on new HTC M9 from the mobile operator is simply anti-fraud software.…

Mystery Californian could claim $100k for venerable old box A woman who dumped a 1976 Apple 1 computer at a California recycling centre is apparently unaware that she's in line for a hefty payout, after the facility sold the vintage kit for $200,000.…

Canterbury residents spared 'horrible sight' of public engorgement The Canterbury World Naked Bike Ride jaunt on Saturday got off to an entertaining start as one "over-excited" male participant was spotted sporting an erection.…

Endurance still an issue though SanDisk has souped up its CloudSpeed Eco SSD for cloud service providers, doubling its capacity and raising throughput, courtesy of a process shrink.…

Living with the inevitable As technology evolves, bottlenecks in the infrastructure move around. The switch speed leapfrogs the server speed, then the servers are upgraded with faster LAN cards and the spinning disks in the SAN become the weak link, so you upgrade and find that the SAN fabric is holding you back.…

12 months of free downloads barely WEEKS away Windows 10 will be coughed by Microsoft on July 29, the company said on Monday morning – and Windows 7 and 8.1 users can reserve their free upgrade right now.…

But 'irresponsible' Senate now backs Freedom Act A number of key provisions in the US Patriot Act lapsed at midnight on Sunday, after the Senate failed to get its act together, much to the chagrin of the White House.…

Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment sits on naughty step A major data security breach at the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment has caused the release of 40,000 members' details to a fraudster.…

Extracting the most value from a pretty expensive wristjob Product Roundup It’s the hottest thing to happen to wrists since Chinese burns, but apart from leaking your biology and emptying your wallet, what can an Apple Watch actually do for you – assuming you can get one?…

But Chinese mobe firm has at least hired a phone-fixing outfit Rising dragon Xiaomi launches its Mi brand and online store in the UK on Tuesday.…

This year's smartmobes and fondleslabs are trying to look like handbags Computex Computex day zero kicked off in Taipei today, and after some pleasantries got down to business with an ASUS keynote that pitched style over substance as a good thing.…

Bad implementations of login services leave your details hanging in the wind Researchers from the University of Darmstadt say app developers have exposed 56 million credentials by borking login processes using services from Google, Amazon, and Facebook.…

'It's not screen time, it's book time' so do your chores or I'll take away your NOVEL! Amazon.com looks to have decided that its next big market is your kids.…

That's why you're the 'judge' and I'm the 'law-talking' guy The trial of a man accused of fraudulently purchasing more than 150 fondleslabs was halted in San Francisco Bay's Redwood City last week when the judge learned that the defence attorney had not only an inactive law licence, but also a warrant for his arrest on drug and theft charges.…

Non-random Bitcoin user gets $8k worth of bug-addressed freebies In “rare circumstances”, the Android Bitcoin wallet Blockchain could prove a catastrophic failure for users, so its authors have rushed out an update.…

Preview available no, beta real soon now, then …. wake me up when it's live, okay? Microsoft's promise to make Azure Cloud Foundry-friendly has become concrete. A bit.…

384 cores in a 2U chassis will give scaled-up Atom-isers something to ponder Computex Motherboard maestro Gigabyte has revealed new servers based on Cavium's ThunderX ARM chippery.…

Apple hacker reveals cracker 0day rootkit whacker Respected Apple hacker Pedro Vilaça has uncovered a low-level zero day vulnerability in Mac computers that allows privileged users to more easily install EFI rootkits.…

Cubesat reboots after discovering that in space, no-one can press CTRL-ALT-DEL After an unexpected and nervous wait, the Planetary Society is cock-a-whoop to be in contact with its LightSail cubesat.…

'Transition period' between ADSL2+ and FTTN to force sensible hand brake Network deployment rules and the Shannon-Hartley Theorem are crimping national broadband network (NBN) speeds, and will do for some time.…

And don't panic about the cloud, because every platform has gaps that need tools says CEO Ratmir Timashev Most CEOs give little away in interviews: they stick to the script and deliver information in easily-digestible chunks.…

Smartphones killed the SMS star Google has emailed users of its Calendar service to advise them that “Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent.”…

Badly-configured software, that is, not badly-written software Airbus has confirmed the crash that stalled its A400M program was caused by engine control software.…

Online retailer Newegg post prices, Microsoft's says that's a mere 'rumour' UPDATE Microsoft's been saying Windows 10 will ship ”in summer”. And now it looks like the company has chosen the last day of summer to launch Windows 10.…

Grip 'n' grins expected Monday with about US$15bn of cash on the table Intel's rumoured interest in Altera is making headlines again, with the two reportedly readying an announcement as early as Monday, US time.…

Yay, be even more annoying with your pals Who knew Marissa Mayer could be so far ahead of the curve? Her company Yahoo! bought Tumblr back in 2013 when the Purple Palace seemingly recognised that it was crucial to back the animated .gif rebirth.…

Be still, my beating ... Apple – having tweaked how its Watch monitors a customer's heart rate – has been forced to explain the change, after fitness freaks freaked out about the gizmo's irregular tracking function.…

Retreat from the dark side Review The big news with Fedora 22, just delivered, is the Fedora project actually managed to stick pretty close to its proposed schedule.…

Plus: Who taught the killbots how to jump? QuoTW This was the week we made chips out of wood, watched a $37bn merger break out and killed each other's iPhones just for fun.…

Plug-in SUV that takes i-MiEV tech into the mainstream Vulture @ the wheel And so we come full circle. Back in 2009 The Reg’s very first ‘leccy car review took a gander at the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. That was essentially just a technology demonstrator and much of that technology has now cropped up in the Outlander PHEV, a plug-in hybrid which, judging by the number I've seen on the roads and Mitsubishi UK's recent claim to have flogged over 10,000 of the things, is Britain's best-selling electric vehicle by some margin.…

Meet the chap behind the controls I worked on ... A few days from now, Christian Lees will be in the Greek islands, sunning himself on the deck of a colossal private yacht. Staff on the yacht will prepare his meals, even do his laundry.…

Know what a mineral reserve is? No. There's your problem Worstall @ the Weekend The scene is an early morning current affairs radio show. Very important people talk to the nation here.…

Astroboffins hope to spot different terrain this time around NASA's Cassini spacecraft is expected to complete its final close encounter with Hyperion, one of Saturn's many moons, on Sunday.…

How Joseph Bazalgette flushed the capital into the modern age Geek's Guide to Britain At various times in the history of the UK, there’s been a massive stink at Westminster, accompanied by demands that “something must be done”. We’ll be stumbling through the demands for PR after this year’s election for a while yet, but spare a thought for the politicians of 1858 who had to endure The Great Stink.…

Fight Club's Chuck Palahniuk is back on form Page File El Reg bookworm Mark Diston looks at literature's latest with a book of scintillating short stories from Chuck Palahniuk. New York Times best selling author Paolo Bacigalupi take us into the near future with a dystopian tale of drought, detectives and delinquents. And the 1990s Yugoslav Wars are reimagined through the eyes of a young girl in an gripping debut novel by Sara Nović.…

Ask me anything ... just keep it short! Something for the Weekend, Sir? We’ve reached the end of an extended, hot, steamy and sweaty session that has been going on practically non-stop for several days – just me and four willing young women. One of them suddenly sits up, looks into my eyes and whispers those magic words: “I have a quick question.”…

Better to be more open on .onion, apparently Updated Security researchers speaking at the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam this week have demonstrated that users of hidden services on Tor are putting themselves at risk of being identified – if an attacker is willing to put in the time and resources.…

Judge: 'You wanted it to be your legacy. And it is' Convicted Silk Road kingpin Ross Ulbricht has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.…

There's an advantage to being medieval The NSA tried to wreck North Korea's nuclear weapons lab using the centrifuge-knackering malware Stuxnet, and ultimately failed, multiple intelligence sources claim.…