The Register

You could just watch less TikTok or Twitch, maybe go outside Analysis There's no denying the fact that streaming video is insanely popular – now accounting for upwards of 80 percent of all internet traffic, according to some estimates.…

We should know why we see what we see, not be left in the dark Column As it’s been about forty years since I’ve had pimples, it astounds me that YouTube’s recommendation engine recently served me videos of people with some really severe skin problems - generally on their noses. The preview images themselves are horrifying, and should really come with some sort of content warning. I immediately tell YouTube “I don’t want this” and “never recommend this channel.”…

Air by itself just doesn't cut it anymore European cloud operator OVHcloud has just celebrated 20 years of using water cooling technology in its datacenters, leading up to the development of a hybrid system that combines both water and immersion cooling to drive greater efficiency when operating demanding workloads.…

VSI releases OpenVMS 9.2-1 and x86 hobby licenses VMS Software Inc (VSI) has opened its hobbyist licensing scheme for the x86-64 version of one of the most reliable OSes in the business.…

We speak to professor deeply involved in multi-year, billion-plus-euro mission Updated On December 4, 1973, NASA's Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to observe Jupiter up close, zipping by at a distance of 82,000 miles above its swirling clouds. Its twin probe, Pioneer 11, followed a year later, and got three times closer to the gas giant. Now the European Space Agency is about to try for an even closer look at the biggest planet in our locale.…

And also, privacy safeguards Italy's privacy watchdog will lift the country's ban on ChatGPT if OpenAI agrees to enforce rules protecting minors and users' personal data by April 30, it announced on Wednesday. …

Strangling competition won't fly here, says Brussels The European Commission has filed a statement of objections regarding Broadcom's proposed purchase of VMware, which the EC said may be harmful to competition.…

Is this what the kids mean by owning the libs? In early 2002, then Microsoft chairman Bill Gates issued his Trustworthy Computing memo to ensure that computing "is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony."…

Senator Wyden warns full probe needed AT&T is "concealing vital cybersecurity reporting" about its FirstNet phone network for first responders and the US military, according to US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who said the network had been dubbed unsafe by CISA.…

你好 [insert name], 我在 Ministry of Public Security 工作 [insert shakedown] Criminals posing as law enforcement agents of the Chinese government are shaking down Chinese nationals living the United States by accusing them of financial crimes and threatening to arrest or hurt them if they don't pay, according to the FBI.…

Need more speed? Just stuff it with custom ASICs Fortinet claims its latest firewall can secure an entire datacenter while consuming about a quarter the power of its competitors.…

Software fix coming – that'll be a braking change we'd actually like to see A mayhem of self-driving Waymo cars succumbed to San Francisco fog on Tuesday morning and came to a halt, briefly tying up traffic in the city's Balboa Terrace neighborhood.…

Please don't pair it with ChatGPT, please don't pair it with ChatGPT Video Two Digidog robots will return to New York City for police work despite earlier criticism that ended with the cops terminating a $94,000 contract and sending the remote-controlled machines back to Boston Dynamics.…

Maybe soon all our friends are electric America's Environmental Protection Agency today proposed a bunch of vehicle emissions standards that, while not banning gasoline-powered vehicles outright, could lead to automakers drastically speeding up EV adoption.…

For those who think spreadsheet app isn't wild enough, try some of these potential future widgets Microsoft is going to let organizations try out experimental Excel projects it's working on.…

If passed, it'll be the first law in the US to require tractor makers to hand over documentation and parts Updated State legislators in Colorado have advanced an agricultural right to repair bill to Governor Jared Polis's desk for signature that, if passed, would be the first law of its kind in the United States.…

It's (probably) not going to kill your latency and it could save you a buck Feature Over the past few years, we’ve seen the thermal design power (TDP) of all manner of chips creeping steadily higher as chipmakers fight to keep Moore's Law alive, while continuing to deliver higher core counts, faster frequencies, and instructions per clock (IPC) improvements on schedule.…

Plus: RIP Twitter Inc – it's X Corp now Updated "I said BBC could come [to] Twitter, then, to my surprise, a reporter shows up," Chief Twit Elon Musk announced this morning.…

Energy sipping designs for mobile, ultimately coming to DC, too Intel and Brit chip design outfit Arm have put aside their differences and penned an agreement to make it easier for Arm licensees to have their products manufactured at an Intel fab using an upcoming advanced production node.…

Fancy a sublease? Office digs in Silicon Valley hometown hotspot up for grabs Salesforce appears to be pulling out of even more of its San Francisco office tower space, following job cuts and a cost-cutting exercise.…

Some brilliant toys await Dr Makenzie Lystrup in mega space facility Dr Makenzie Lystrup is the new director at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland – the biggest employer of space exploration techies and scientists in the US – and swore in using the consecrated tome beloved by many a Reg reader, Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.…

Instead tech department working on 'range of measures' to foster investment The UK government's updated telecoms strategy wants standalone 5G coverage for all populated areas by 2030, blue-sky funding for 6G research, grants for satellite connections in remote areas, and faster rollout of high-speed broadband.…

Collective deal to cover software needs for every rung of government The UK government has awarded a contract worth up to £1.84 billion for vertical applications relevant to local authorities.…

Red-tape vague enough to land open source volunteers in hot water for iffy code The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is concerned that proposed EU cybersecurity laws will leave open source organizations and individuals unfairly liable for distributing incorrect code.…

Reports find shipments spiked since sanctions were imposed, feeding Moscow's appetite for high-end kit Russia has managed to import over $1 billion of technology despite international sanctions, according to customs data. And some of the contraband was allegedly shipped by a UK-based company.…

If it reflects 'core values of socialism' it'll be fine. No pressure, then, given that chatbots make many mistakes As China's tech giants deploy their ChatGPT clones, Beijing has released proposed regulations for research, development and use of generative AI chatbots, without quite answering whether the tools can conform to socialist ideals.…

As Mandiant finds more evidence it was North Korea wot done it The CEO of VoIP software provider 3CX has teased the imminent release of a security-focused upgrade to the company’s progressive web application client.…

Organizations can't outsource environmental challenges, warns Gartner "Organizations can't just outsource their environmental challenges to public cloud providers," analyst firm Gartner has warned.…

It's not all doom and gloom because ML also amplifies defensive efforts, probably Bots like ChatGPT may not be able to pull off the next big Microsoft server worm or Colonial Pipeline ransomware super-infection but they may help criminal gangs and nation-state hackers develop some attacks against IT, according to Rob Joyce, director of the NSA's Cybersecurity Directorate.…

Pegasus, pssh, you so 2000-and-late Malware reportedly developed by a little-known Israeli commercial spyware maker has been found on devices of journalists, politicians, and an NGO worker in multiple countries, say researchers. …

Commerce Dept knows it needs to know more as it ponders regulation The Biden Administration on Tuesday issued a formal request for public comments to help shape potential policies that would improve accountability of artificial intelligence products and services.…

Plus Google, SAP, Adobe and Cisco emit fixes Microsoft patched 97 security flaws today for April's Patch Tuesday including one that has already been found and exploited by miscreants attempting to deploy Nokoyawa ransomware.…

x86 giant cancels mid-tier processor, plans to relaunch nerfed parts for 'different markets' Intel is retooling its Data Center GPU Max lineup just weeks after the departure of Accelerated Computing Group lead Raja Koduri and the cancellation of the x86 titan's next-gen Rialto Bridge platform.…

Windows giant would never try to get an unfair Edge over rival, surely After five years, Microsoft has addressed a bug in its Windows Defender antivirus software that led to high CPU usage and wasted electricity for users of Mozilla's Firefox web browser.…

Less about love of the planet, more frustrated city officials Microsoft has agreed not to use evaporative cooling in future datacenters at its PHX 10-11 campus in Goodyear, near Phoenix, Arizona, a move the Windows giant touted as a sustainability improvement because it will reduce water consumption in the drought-prone region.…

Decade or so in the clink begins April 27 Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes' attempt to stave off her time behind bars has been rejected, with a federal judge denying her request to remain free on bail pending appeals and reaffirming the court's order for her to report for incarceration later this month. …

Lawsuits keep piling up for Musk-owned 'trending to breakeven' platform A trio of former Twitter executives led by ex-CEO Parag Agrawal have sued the company for allegedly not reimbursing more than a million dollars in legal expenses incurred during and after their employment, as their contracts oblige.…

An end to greenwashing won't come without a fight Updated Efforts to regulate datacenters are starting to stack up.…

Despite layoff trend, IT staff seek mobility over security More than three quarters (77 percent) of UK tech workers are unhappy with their jobs and have looked for another one in the past six months, according to a study of 1,000-plus professionals.…

The party could be over soon Container giant (actual containers, not the virtualization tech) Tupperware shocked investors when it said yesterday that its business was looking less airtight than you might expect.…

Web code-based cross-platform app kit offers a P2P alternative Interview Socket Supply Co introduced Socket Runtime today, an open source runtime for creating native mobile and desktop applications for Linux, macOS, or Windows using web technologies, but with optional peer-to-peer connectivity as a way to supplement or even avoid backend cloud services.…

The default is that sharing is caring as Redmond admits: 'These permissions could be abused' A design flaw in Microsoft Azure – that shared key authorization is enabled by default when creating storage accounts – could give attackers full access to your environment, according to Orca Security researchers.…

To that we say good luck Fujitsu, the global tech services biz, is embarking on an ERP standardization program to use one system worldwide, based on SAP S/4HANA, in a project expected to employ around 1,500 people at its peak.…

Oh and expect to DCs to get more expensive, not less, analysts warn Comment With cloud costs expected to rise over the next year, you might be considering moving your applications back on-prem or to a colocation facility — after all, it worked for 37Signals.…

Plus: KFC, Pizza Hut owner spills more beans on ransomware hit... latest critical flaws... and more In Brief More than 40 percent of surveyed IT security professionals say they've been told to keep network breaches under wraps despite laws and common decency requiring disclosure.…

Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Opinion There isn’t an astronomer on the planet who isn’t in two minds about modern technology. The same advances in material science, computers and radio technology that have given humanity spectacular new views of the universe also clutter the skies and deafen the radio bands with swarms of noisy, shiny, satellites. Now, though, the worst offenders are opening up one of astronomy’s final frontiers in unexplored space.…

Has science GONE TOO FAR? Chatbots like Google's LaMDA or OpenAI's ChatGPT are not sentient nor that intelligent. Nonetheless, boffins believe they can use these large language models to simulate human behavior inspired by one of the world's most popular early computer games and some AI code.…

Forced developers to sign exclusivity agreements in return for promises of going global South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission today slapped Google with a ₩42.1 billion ($32 million, £26 million) fine for attacking a rival app store with anticompetitive practices.…

'Tongyi Qianwen' will drive cloud consumption, industry-specific AI, and smarter smart speakers Alibaba Cloud has revealed a new large language model and plans to use it in everything from the cloud to smart speakers.…

Plus: Aussie mayor threatens to sue OpenAI; Minors face ChatGPT ban; President Biden on AI In Brief Meta has declined to detail how it will treat AI-generated deepfake content that appear on its social media platforms.…