The Register

Stout heart a requisite for software engineers in days of yore Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen has recalled a time when Windows developers encountered the trundling terror of the USB Cart of Death following an unfortunate mistake live on stage during a Windows 98 keynote....

Hey Cortana: Why is David Tennant back as the BBC's longest lived space alien? The BBC is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its long-running science fiction series, Doctor Who, by popping a Surface Duo into the hands of actor David Tennant's latest take on the humanoid alien....

You may never have heard of it, but you almost certainly use it, possibly many times a day New versions of this amazingly versatile tool, used in most streaming video services and devices, don't come along very often....

Naughty engineers + inability to work email = $$$ A jury has sided with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) against Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) over the theft of source code and documentation. A total of $210 million was this week awarded....

Web storefront maker fixed the flaw, but not before blasting infoseccer The owner of the e-commerce store management system OpenCart has responded with hostility to a security researcher disclosing a vulnerability in the product....

Another mega-constellation incoming China has launched an Internet Technology test satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan Province....

Public Accounts Committee slams progress and questions plans Delays to a central plank of the UK tax collector's efforts to provide an end-to-end digital service "mean the Exchequer will likely miss out on additional tax revenue of 1.75 billion," according to a spending watchdog....

Think of all the crap discounted things you won't need to buy now HSBC's online and mobile banking systems crashed spectacularly this morning on the busiest shopping day of the year, potentially disappointing early risers looking for a spot of Black Friday retail therapy....

No, but here comes the Functional Source License to further muddy the open-source licensing waters Opinion Way back when we loaded software with punch cards and magnetic tape, all programs were "free software" and "open source." Then along came proprietary software, and everything changed. But programmers rebelled and developed the first formal definitions of free and open source software....

Ex-hosting biz boss to be sentenced for historic offences after being found guilty of earlier sexual assault Lawrence Jones, the founder and former chief exec at hosting biz UKFast, is awaiting a prison sentence after being found guilty of raping two women in the Greater Manchester area....

Constitutional court tells govt: Er, about that 60B you handed out... it's not legal A recent ruling by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has cast doubt over funds earmarked to subsidize the building of local chip factories by companies such as TSMC and Intel, it has emerged....

When is a spreadsheet not a spreadsheet? On Call Fridays can often feel like purgatory to prepare for the heavenly weekend, which is why The Register marks the day with a new installment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed tale of tech support torture....

Still not reusable, but at least it's getting closer to long-delayed launch The Ariane 6 launcher has successfully conducted a hot fire test -, an important achievement for the Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA)....

Buying on credit forbidden, affordability tests imposed, and accreditation required for big bets The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) revealed on Thursday its latest cryptocurrency regulations - measures designed to manage the digital payment tokens (DPTs) with measures akin to those some governments treat cigarettes or gambling....

Bharti Enterprises-backed outfit beats Kuiper and Starlink The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) has approved Eutelsat OneWeb to provide commercial satellite broadband services....

Tech companies should behave like the aviation industry and detail failures to improve safety for all The chief scientist of the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the region's internet registry, as called for operators of digital infrastructure to share more info about their outages....

Russia's Unified Digital Platform could be yours, along with many other less controversial projects India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has created the Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository - a collection of code created by governments, made freely available to other nations....

One of US's largest underwriters forced to shut down a number of key systems Fortune 500 insurance biz Fidelity National Financial (FNF) has confirmed that it has fallen victim to a "cybersecurity incident."...

With Ingenuity still on the Red Planet, engineers have the best of both worlds NASA is planning more ambitious flights for the Mars Ingenuity helicopter as engineers work on its follow-up back on Earth....

Recall issued for fiery surprise Got a Lenovo USB-C Laptop Power bank? Is the model number PBLG2W? There's a chance the device could catch fire, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC), and Lenovo has issued a recall notice....

Company hopes more folks needing AI compute globally will offset pain AI chip developer Graphcore is laying off staff in China after ceasing sales in the country, following the introduction of updated US export restrictions....

Kim's cyber cronies becoming more active, sophisticated in attempts to pwn global orgs The national cybersecurity organizations of the UK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have issued a joint advisory warning of an increased volume and sophistication of North Korean software supply chain attacks....

Eyeing an August 2024 launch, if spacecraft is ready for its first mission Blue Origin is expected to launch two small Martian satellites as the first-ever interplanetary payload aboard its upcoming New Glenn rocket, NASA confirmed this week....

Customers complain of poor comms during huge outage that's sparked payroll fears A ransomware attack and resulting outages at direct debit collection company London & Zurich has forced at least one customer to take out a short-term loan as six-figure backlogs continue to cause cash flow mayhem....

Net-zero promises or zero-net progress? Greenpeace has savaged global electronics companies, claiming they are simply not doing enough with efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions....

Restoration project headed up by Steve Kaisler is gathering steam ANTIQUE CODE SHOW Xerox's pioneering graphical Lisp workstation operating system is not only alive, well, and MIT-licensed, but running in the cloud as well as on modern OSes....

Akamai sounds the alarm - won't name the vendors yet, but there is a fix coming Akamai has uncovered two zero-day bugs capable of remote code execution, both being exploited to distribute the Mirai malware and built a botnet army for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks....

Study finds galactic cosmic radiation can damage below-the-belt tissues, and the problem may not go away Male astronauts who spend prolonged periods in space may suffer permanent erectile dysfunction, new research has found....

Here comes the Sun Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has taken an AI tool created to monitor telco networks and adapted it to predict anomalies in a nuclear fusion reactor to help keep its experimental power source running....

Users told to hold tight and await instructions as investigation continues Web tracking and analytics outfit New Relic has issued a scanty security advisory warning customers it has experienced a scary cyber something....

Community programs retained but CEO waves farewell Broadcom's acquisition of VMware has concluded, and quickly resulted in the creation of four divisions dedicated to the virty giant's business - none of which appear to include end-user compute products....

That GitHub repo an interviewer wants you to work on could be malware Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 has detailed a pair of job market hacking schemes linked to state-sponsored actors in North Korea: one in which the threat actors pose as job seekers, the other as would-be employers....

And offers $25,000 prize to stop voice deepfakes from catching on The US Federal Trade Commission has given itself the power to use compulsory processes - a mechanism that allows it to demand access to documents - for investigations of products and services that use or claim to be powered by AI....

Not that we're encouraging anyone to defeat this fingerprint authentication Hardware security hackers have detailed how it's possible to bypass Windows Hello's fingerprint authentication and login as someone else - if you can steal or be left alone with their vulnerable device....

Staff records swiped, leaked by gang who probably read one too many comics, sorry, graphic novels The self-described "gay furry hackers" of SiegedSec are back: this time boasting they've broken into America's biggest nuclear power lab's computer systems and stolen records on thousands of employees. Some of that data has already been leaked, it appears....

Decision means family of man killed in 2019 cross-traffic collision can take carmaker to trial There is "reasonable evidence" that Tesla and Elon Musk were aware of deficiencies in Autopilot that caused the 2019 death of a Model 3 owner, a Florida judge has ruled, opening the way for yet another liability trial....

Stop us if you've heard this one before While the chaos unfolding at OpenAI might be amusing to watch, the issue of copyright infringement continues to plague the upstart after yet another lawsuit was lobbed its way....

GPS-jamming tactics were doing much more than simply scrambling missile guidance systems Cisco says it has shipped modified switches to Ukrenergo, Ukraine's state-owned electricity grid operator, to help it withstand Russian cyberattacks aiming to disrupt energy infrastructure....

Unsurprisingly, the app doesn't know what's going on at the company either Despite the revolving door of CEOs at OpenAI, the company has found time to update ChatGPT with a freebie voice feature....

Cites alleged ageist headwinds A former Boeing employee has filed a brief for damages against the aerospace giant, seeking compensation of $1.75 million for emotional distress after allegedly suffering retaliation for speaking up against "targeting conduct" aimed at older workers....

What is double of 15% sales shrinkage? HP CEO Enrique Lores is betting a sprinkle of AI dust can regenerate the flagging PC market - and with shipments still in decline across the industry, he can't afford to tease Wall Street....

Two companies both online when slide was viewed at presentation Nvidia is facing legal action in the US for theft of trade secrets from a German automotive company, which alleges its ex-employee made an epic blunder of showing something he shouldn't have when minimizing a Powerpoint slide at a joint Microsoft Teams meeting both companies were attending....

Helium tech to end up on $1-$2 SoCs claimed to bring big performance gains for ML workloads Arm is aiming to infuse AI into connected devices and other low-power hardware with an addition to its Cortex-M line-up of microcontroller core designs....

There ain't no party like a Pu-238 party NASA has celebrated a shipment of half a kilo of plutonium oxide by the US Department of Energy, the largest since US production of plutonium-238 was restarted just over a decade ago....

Crims drain wallets of marks after letting them in on 'awesome crypto scheme secret' The US has seized nearly $9 million in proceeds generated by exploiting more than 70 victims across the nation in so-called "pig butchering" scams....

Today's story was brought to you by the words politician and silly Deputy UK Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said the country's civil service would improve public services by, among other things, setting up an "Incubator for AI."...

Katie Moussouris, who pioneered Redmond's program, says folks are focusing on the wrong thing Interview Microsoft's bug bounty program celebrated its tenth birthday this year, and has paid out $63 million to security researchers in that first decade - with $60 million awarded to bug hunters in the past five years alone, according to Redmond....

30 days to get compliant with tracking rules or face enforcement action The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is getting tough on website design, insisting that opting out of cookies must be as simple as opting in....

Award follows 1 deal during pandemic and 60 million in non-competitive contracts Palantir has secured a 330 million ($412 million) contract to provide the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which the world's largest healthcare provider says is vital to recover from its pandemic backlog....

Future neural nets will probably use a mix of AI-generated and real info Synthetic images can help AI models learn visual representations more accurately compared to real snaps, according to computer scientists at MIT and Google. The result is neural networks that are better at making pictures from your written descriptions....