The Register

'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.…

Also: India gets an Apple store; ZTE sells next-gen servers outside China; Foxconn invests in EVs; and more ASIA IN BRIEF Tesla is set to open a new megafactory in Shanghai to produce large-scale rechargeable lithium-ion batteries known as Megapacks, according to a statement issued by the company on Sunday.…

Waits for pen-pushers to sign off debut orbital mission SpaceX has pushed back the first-ever orbital test flight of its largest and most powerful rocket, the Starship, to wait for regulatory approval from America's Federal Aviation Administration.…

Could it be the profit sharing, China ban, or demands for trade secrets? TSMC is the latest foundry operator to express at least some concerns over the US CHIPS Act subsidies opportunity.…

On the bright side, higher inventories will give 'puter makers opportunity to flee China, IDC says Apple's client device sales volumes stood out compared to its competitors during 2023's first quarter, but not for the reasons you might expect, IDC reports.…

At least Redmond listens to some customers Some enterprises that are using Client Access Rules (CARs) in Exchange Online are getting a one-year reprieve before Microsoft shuts down the access control tool altogether.…

Or whatever you managed to haggle with these miscreants If you want to sneak malware onto people's Android devices via the official Google Play store, it may cost you about $20,000 to do so, Kaspersky suggests.…

Sorry, make that Titter. We can explain Netizens using Twitter's Circle feature may want to take note here.…

How's the saying go? $50m here, $50m there, pretty soon you're talking real money The liquidators picking over the remains of FTX have released their first formal report into Sam Bankman-Fried's imploded empire – and it somehow appears things are worse than feared.…

Keep calm and install patches before abuse becomes widespread Apple rolled out patches on Good Friday to its iOS, iPadOS, and macOS operating systems and the Safari web browser to address vulnerabilities found by Google and Amnesty International that were exploited in the wild.…

Robo-ride driven round the bend, or at least, should have Cruise pushed a software update to its fleet of 300 self-driving cars operating in San Francisco after one vehicle crashed into the back of a bendy bus.…

Someone in China upset its tech was ripped off? The irony Baidu has sued Apple and some app makers after what's said to be fake copies of the Chinese web giant's ERNIE AI chatbot appeared in the iGiant's app store.…

Great, more company for Stadia, Duo and pals in the graveyard Owners of Dropcam security cameras and Nest Secure systems have been given an unwelcome deadline from Google: their smart home products will be shut off April 8 next year.…

Oh, sure, let's play a game of legal and technical whack-a-mole Microsoft and Fortra are taking legal and technical actions to thwart cyber-criminals from using the latter company's Cobalt Strike software to distribute malware.…

AI chat comes at a social cost by putting words in your mouth You might find using AI technology helpful when chatting to others, but this latest research shows people will think less of someone using such tools.…

Or else! Travelers looking to get from Fife to Edinburgh will soon have a new transport option: a fleet of five autonomous buses set to begin operating in Scotland on a 14-mile route this May.…

Where else can you read a story that starts with a Wang hack and ends with a wedding? Who, Me? Ah, dear reader, how nice to meet you once again at the water-cooler analog The Register likes to call Who, Me? where we admit our past errors without fear of judgement. OK, maybe a little judgement.…

Move fast, make things A runaway supermassive black hole is speeding through space and creating a trail of stars behind it, a phenomenon accidentally discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.…

Alien dust world globe took three years of hand-stitching images to create Fancy a Mars flyover? You're in luck, as a team at Caltech just published a 5.7 terapixel mosaic of Mars that can be explored in 3D.…

Synthetaic CEO on finding Beijing's 'needle in a haystack' of sat imagery Interview Most of us binge Netflix when we're feeling sick. Corey Jaskolski, on the other hand, looks for Chinese spy balloons in satellite imagery.…

1.5TB of databases, source code, BIOS tools said to be stolen Owners of MSI-brand motherboards, GPUs, notebooks, PCs, and other equipment should exercise caution when updating their device's firmware or BIOS after the manufacturer revealed it has recently suffered a cyberattack.…

So, like, three iPhones and a Mac keyboard Pic Unidentified individuals managed to break through the wall of a coffee equipment maker's bathroom in a shopping center this week to enter and rob an adjacent Apple Store.…

'Russia is the king of disinformation and hybrid warfare' expert tells El Reg Analysis War plans apparently detailing secret US and NATO support for a Ukrainian offensive to regain land invaded by Russia were leaked on social media Thursday – and almost as quickly as they appeared, their legitimacy came under fire.…

Nadella happy to sling code to Russians and Iranians, or nah? Microsoft will pay more than $3.3 million to settle allegations it busted US sanctions by selling software and services to blacklisted companies and individuals in Russia, Iran, and other countries.…

What else when you have a customer that will only accept these three words: Sir, yes, sir Intel this week said the prototype multi-die chips it was commissioned to build for the US Department of Defense are now ready more than a year ahead of schedule.…

Intimate, disturbing moments became message board memes, probably Tesla workers over the past few years have reportedly shared sensitive and embarrassing videos captured by the cameras built into their customers' cars.…

Plus: Substack shanked by bitter Twitter? The chunk of internal source code Twitter released the other week contains a "shadow ban" vulnerability serious enough to earn its own CVE, as it can be exploited to bury someone's account of sight "without recourse."…

Thanks.dev wants to spread the wealth directly to coders In 2016, the Ford Foundation published a report on the lack of financial support for public source code and there's still a massive funding gap, but a new scheme may sort that out.…

The Reg speaks to one of the founders of the Talos Ukraine task force Interview Leading up to Russia's invasion of its neighboring country, Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group established a dedicated cybersecurity-threat-hunting unit on the ground in Ukraine to protect people and critical infrastructure in the war zone.…

OpenAI and Stripe snaffled a lot of what cash was dished out, or so this report claims Year-over-year global VC funding dropped precipitously in Q1 2023, with at least $76 billion (£61 billion) doled out to companies at all startup stages. That may sound like a lot but it's a 53 percent drop from the same time last year, reports funding tracker Crunchbase.…

Awoogah, awooooogah, new policy coming for developers Developers creating Android applications for the Google Play store will need to make it easy for users to delete their app accounts and associated data, though not for a while yet.…

Netizens urged to disconnect kit after 40,000-plus devices found riddled with dumb bugs A handful of bugs in Nexx's smart home devices can be exploited by crooks to, among other things, open doors, power off appliances, and disable alarms. More than 40,000 of these gadgets in residential and commercial properties are said to be vulnerable after the manufacturer failed to act.…

Service level agreement should really specify services, not just arrivals On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's weekly reader-contributed tales of futile and furtive tech support chores.…

WPA stands for will-provide-access, if you can successfully exploit a target's setup A vulnerability identified in at least 55 Wi-Fi router models can be exploited by miscreants to spy on victims' data as it's sent over a wireless network.…

'CORVO' ships with tape and glue, gives defense orgs just-in-time drone capability for a song An Australian engineering company has created a cardboard drone that runs on open source software, standard hardware, and can be assembled and flown with no prior experience.…

I feel the need, the need for code speed The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending the Pentagon respond better to evolving threats, such as speeding up software modernization by using agile dev practices.…

Efforts under way to keep satellites and other craft safe from military threats Russia's invasion of Ukraine clearly defined how warfare going forward will look – a mix of the horrors of conventional fighting on the ground and the more hidden though ferocious battle in cyberspace.…

Which means you may suddenly hit a 5GB limit rather than 15GB Some users of Microsoft's free Outlook hosted service are finding they can no longer send or receive emails because of how the Windows giant now calculates the storage of attachments.…

Prelim Q1 2023 results expected to be company's worst in 14 years Samsung has inked a multi-year agreement with AMD for more Radeon graphics in its Exynos mobile processors, just ahead of reporting quarterly financials that analysts expect will show a steep fall in profit on the back of weakened demand for semiconductors.…

A seventh branch of the military is needed to address rising threats Analysis There is a growing push inside and outside of Washington DC for a new branch within the military dedicated to cybersecurity, with proponents citing the need to protect against growing threats from China, Russia, and other nation states to American national security.…

Report says code has improved – and thousands could still end up falsely ID'd, argue privacy advocates Police in the UK are preparing to reintroduce real-time facial recognition technology after a report found the latest versions of software used by law enforcement have improved accuracy and have fewer false positives.…

While we're just here for De Beers The secret to unlocking the full potential of quantum networking may be hiding at the center of a diamond, according to Amazon Web Services. This week, AWS popped the question to De Beers subsidiary Element Six in the hope of finding it.…

Wrecking foreign infrastructure? But that's Team America's job! Register Kettle Lately, we've learned of Russia's stockpile of cyber-weapons, and we're genuinely wondering if anyone's surprised by these revelations.…

Promises 11% pay rise after almost a year of negotiations and strikes over salary and conditions Amid rampant inflation, spiraling costs and stagnant wages, there was little bandwidth for April Fools' this year when every day can feel like a bad joke.…

It starts with a headlamp and fake smart speaker, and ends in an injection attack and a vanished motor Automotive security experts say they have uncovered a method of car theft relying on direct access to the vehicle's system bus via a smart headlamp's wiring.…

CMA initiates price cap amid spiraling costs, Motorola Solutions to appeal The price cap Britain's competition regulator imposed on Motorola's Airwave Solutions, whose tech provides comms between emergency services across the nation, could save taxpayers more than £1 billion by the time the successor is ready.…

ACRO says payment data safe, other info may have been snaffled ACRO, the UK's criminal records office, is combing over a "cyber security incident" that forced it to pull its customer portal offline.…

Luxury cars and designer duds don't seem very prince of thieves Spanish cops have arrested a 19-year-old suspected of stealing records belonging to half a million taxpayers and developing a database to sell stolen information to other cyber criminals.…

Even destroyed spare parts, then may have rubbed salt into the wound by filing for tax write-offs Cisco destroyed caches of spare parts, and even wrecked its own offices, when international sanctions on Russia saw it quit the country in June 2022.…