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Microsoft free tool snooping on users? Surely not! If you've been tempted to download the Bing Wallpaper app to spice up your Windows 11 desktop backgrounds, you may want to think twice....

Outgoing administration rushes to allocate money ahead of Inauguration Day Intel has finalized an agreement with the US Department of Commerce to receive up to $7.86 billion awarded via the CHIPS and Science Act, funding that has come into question since the election....

Ad slinger alleged to have abused position, resulting in higher prices for consumers Google must face a 7 billion ($8.8 billion) claim in the UK over allegations it abused its search engine dominance, a tribunal has ruled....

Third time this year an NHS unit's IT systems have come under attack A UK hospital is declaring a "major incident," cancelling all outpatient appointments due to "cybersecurity reasons."...

Just what you want to find when you start a new week Updated Taiwanese NAS maker QNAP addressed 24 vulnerabilities across various products over the weekend....

Meanwhile, budget clambered from 2.6M to nearly 40M, says report A UK council had no fully costed and resourced plan in place to deliver a critical Oracle ERP project two years after beginning an SAP-replacement program, one which has seen years of delay with costs set to climb to 15 times the initial budget....

Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM are all doing it. Andy Jassy's rent-a-server shop may have felt it was leaving money on the table Amazon Web Services has introduced a VMware-as-a-service offering that conforms to Broadcom's licensing schemes....

X rival also under fire for failing to designate legal representative Updated The Bluesky social network is not yet big enough to be considered "Very Large Online Platform" subject to special obligations under Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA) - but it's already having trouble complying with the law....

'Be in no doubt: the UK and others in this room are watching Russia' The government of the United Kingdom on Monday announced the formation of a Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR) to make the nation more resilient to AI-powered cyber threats from Russia....

Wants Cook to look under the couch again and find at least another $15 million Indonesia's Ministry of Industry has snubbed Apple's proposal to invest 1.6 trillion Rupiah ($100 million) in an iPhone accessory and component factory, saying it's not enough to justify lifting a ban on sales of the iPhone 16 in the world's fourth-most populous nation....

'Global Scheduling Ethernet' looks a lot like tech the Ultra Ethernet Consortium is also working on Chinese tech giants last week announced the debut of chips to power a technology called "Global Scheduling Ethernet" that is intended to offer a version of the networking protocol tuned to the needs of AI and other demanding workloads....

Petition claims database titan maintained its mark by making a fraudulent claim Deno Land, maker of the Deno runtime for JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly, has filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark....

And it looks like major UK retailers that rely on it are feeling the pinch US-based supply chain SaaS vendor Blue Yonder has revealed a service disruption caused by ransomware, and its customers are reportedly struggling to get goods onto shelves as a result....

Camp Century could spill millions of gallons of sewage, diesel fuel, and nuclear waste as climate warms Deep within the ice sheet of Greenland lies a US military secret that hasn't been seen since the 1960s, but a NASA flyover earlier this year has provided an unprecedented look at the buried Cold War relic....

Mac Mini and iPhone repairability strides have yet to make it to flagship computer Despite improved repairability scores for Apple's latest iPhone and Mac Mini, the iFixit team says it was left underwhelmed after tearing into the new M4 MacBook Pro....

Remedies should be refined with an eye toward broad platform rights and responsibilities Opinion The US Justice Department's proposed remedies to address Google's monopoly control of the search services and search text advertising markets should be reconsidered in light of the broader problems with technology platforms....

Did we say CrowdStrike? We meant, er, The July Incident... IGNITE The sound of cyber security professionals spraying their screens with coffee could be heard this week as Microsoft claimed, "security is our top priority," as it talked up its Secure Future Initiative (SFI) once again and explained how Windows could be secured....

Plus, soon you'll be able to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a supported option under WSL The latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is here, as are the leading RHELatives. Also, interestingly, Red Hat is working with Microsoft to make it available on top of Windows....

Affected customers gripe about storage biz's tech support Owners of QNAP network-attached storage (NAS) boxes are finding that a firmware update has left them unable to log into their device, and a reset doesn't seem to fix the issue....

Forget the 10x programmer. How about 10x satellites? SpaceX boss Elon Musk has backed claims that the ballooning number of satellites in orbit around the Earth isn't a problem, signing off on a comment stating that "10 times the number of spacecraft" would still not present a challenge....

Senate Intelligence Committee chair says his 'hair is on fire' as execs front the White House The Biden administration on Friday hosted telco execs to chat about China's recent attacks on the sector, amid revelations that US networks may need mass rebuilds to recover....

Another offer IT services giant possibly can't refuse IT services giant Atos has received another offer from the French state, this time for just its Advanced Computing assets, in a transaction that could be worth up to 625 million ($656 million)....

AI snapshot tool stumbles back into the spotlight with more issues Comment The second coming of Windows Recall has brought with it a litany of issues, reminding users that there's a reason why the snapshotting technology remains a preview for Windows Insiders....

Labour government keen, though critics paint it as a severe threat to privacy UK government has launched a 20 million ($25 million) competition for tech companies to provide live facial recognition to a number of police forces....

It's never aliens, but it could be underground TV repair techs Opinion The oldest functional off-Earth space hardware? Well, that is a great question for those into pub quizzes, aka bar trivia. 1977's Voyagers hold some impressive records beside those golden discs, just not that one. Any guesses?...

Spreading the content around other sites - and may also sprinkle some AI around because why not Microsoft has quietly revealed it's binning a site dedicated to software licensing info and education that it currently promotes as "a complete and up-to-date resource for anyone who needs to learn about Microsoft licensing."...

To avoid lock-in, it helps if you remember your keys Who, Me? Welcome once again to Monday morning at the coalface, which as Reg readers know is when we publish reader-submitted tales of tech support gone awry under the banner of Who, Me?...

Beijing's propaganda buddies aren't just using social media Google's Threat Intelligence Group has blocked a network China-related firms from its search results for operating fake news services and websites....

China is trying to become that land, with a government crackdown on the things that make the internet no fun Internet echo chambers and nasty e-commerce tricks that analyze your behavior to milk you for more cash are set to be banned - in China....

Teams-like DingTalk gets an enterprise edition, and virtual Androids unleashed Alibaba Cloud has started to expand its SaaS portfolio by bringing products it once offered only in China to other territories....

Plus: Microsoft seizes phishing domains; Helldown finds new targets; Illegal streaming with Jupyter, and more Infosec in brief Not to make you paranoid, but that business across the street could, under certain conditions, serve as a launching point for Russian cyber spies to compromise your network....

Plus: Korea cracks down on Temu; US, Vietnam, sign infosec pact; India extends controversial hardware import law; and more Asia In Brief Chinese chip designer Loongson last Friday announced its processors are powering a cloud computing platform that has been launched into space....

Six sites targeted for security clean-up, just 49,994 to go A plan for hackers to help secure America's critical infrastructure has kicked off with six US water companies signing up to let coders kick the tires of their computer systems and fix any vulnerabilities....

Oh, AI wanna be like you, AI wanna walk like you, talk like you, too Computer scientists have devised a technique for making AI models behave like specific people....

Our vultures think this tech is interesting but in its 8-bit stage Kettle It's been a fairly bumpy week for enterprise AI, as a string of stories have shown today's neural networks in a less-than-flattering light....

Meanwhile, CISA chief Jen Easterly will step down prior to inauguration Analysis President-elect Donald Trump has announced several unorthodox nominations for his cabinet over the last two weeks, including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whom he tapped to serve as Homeland Security Secretary....

Haven't we heard this story before? Opinion The US Department of Justice has accused a major tech company of an illegal web monopoly and tried to force them to split off their web browser. Sound familiar?...

Pope, Depeche Mode, silent on digital second coming If you find yourself in the Swiss tourist destination of Lucerne with a guilty conscience, there's someone waiting at the historic Peterskapelle Catholic Church to hear your prayers - someone who cares, you might say: Your own personal AI Jesus....

Like its AI, this automated screenshotter and logger is a feature not exactly everyone wanted Microsoft has initiated a limited public preview of its Windows Recall system - about six months after its unveiling sparked backlash over privacy and security concerns....

He'll just have to take this one on the chin The website of self-proclaimed misogynist and alleged sex trafficker and rapist Andrew Tate has been compromised and data on its paying subscribers stolen....

PAN-PAN! Intruders inject web shell backdoors, crypto-coin miners, more Thousands of Palo Alto Networks firewalls were compromised by attackers exploiting two recently patched security bugs. The intruders were able to deploy web-accessible backdoors to remotely control the equipment as well as cryptocurrency miners and other malware....

Draft environmental assessment ready for public scrutiny The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a draft of the environmental assessment for SpaceX's proposal to increase the frequency of launches and landings at the company's Boca Chica facility....

You just gonna stand there, Google, let AWS take the 'primary training partner' title? Not gonna do nothing? Amid concerns about the return of AI winter, when funding and advancements slow down, neural-network golden child Anthropic reports the doubling of Amazon's already substantial financial backing....

Fisticuffs in FOSS-land! Fancy file system's future fraught! Bcachefs project lead Kent Overstreet has written about his problems with the Linux kernel folks and the code of conduct put in place to prevent such flamewars....

OCR tech not quite ready for primetime, in this bit of Windows at least Microsoft has disabled the OCR functionality in its updated Photos app to "address some issues."...

Operators may have to pay more for energy if capacity cannot meet demand Americans could face a 70 percent hike in their electricity bills by 2030 unless action is taken to boost generation and transmission capacity to satisfy an AI-driven surge in demand from datacenters....

Customers are 'all miserable' - but not yet deciding to bail Analysis Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware one year ago, on November 22, 2023. Has it been a success?...

Consultant bemoans lack of use cases and businesses' budget The premium price of AI PCs and a lack of killer applications are leading to some confusion among customers who want to upgrade their aging estates ahead of Windows 10 support ending....

Dual power source beat petrol-only autos for second month running There was good news and bad news for electric vehicle (EV) makers in the European Automobile Manufacturers Association's (ACEA) latest figures: a modest rise in monthly registrations but a dip in year-on-year volumes....

Authorities remain tight-lipped on specifics An investigation into areospace and defense giant Thales is now underway over suspicions of palm-greasing and fraud....