The Register

Watchdog claims Facebook parent sat on its hands as fake ads fleeced netizens The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed suit against The Artist Formerly Known As Facebook over its publication of ads allegedly featuring celebrities peddling a supposedly surefire-route to cryptocurrency riches.…

Package used by big apps now drops anti-war text files on desktops The developer of JavaScript library node-ipc, which is used by the popular vue.js framework, deliberately introduced a critical security vulnerability that, for some netizens, would destroy their computers' files.…

Strap in for a wild ride of forks, trademarks, and licensing Last year, the Graph Foundation had to rethink how it develops and distributes its Open Native Graph Database (ONgDB) after it settled a trademark and copyright claim by database biz Neo4j.…

Get ready for machine-made decisions, whether you're shopping, banking, reading, working Corporate funding splurged on AI technology is expected to grow to $120bn by 2025 in the US, a yearly increase of 26 percent over the next four financial years, according to IDC.…

Thanks... Micro... soft... OK, there, we said it Microsoft has published a tool that scans for and detects MikroTik-powered Internet-of-Things devices that have been hijacked by the Trickbot gang.…

@zverok asks dev world for support as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues Interview Victor Shepelev, known as @zverok on Twitter and GitHub, is a Ruby developer and software architect who lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Since Russia invaded his country on February 24, 2022, he's had more pressing concerns than writing code, such as keeping his family safe and helping his fellow citizens survive.…

Turns out the internet is a set of tubes after all Microsoft and Finland's largest energy company have partnered to build a new datacenter near Helsinki that will heat homes as it cools servers.…

Bold moves to create a 'semi' literate pool of factory workers Intel plans to spend $100m on improving semiconductor engineering education and research in the US.…

Plus granting powers to undo previous takeovers A pair of law bills before the US House and Senate would give watchdogs stronger powers to block big mergers, and allow regulators to reach back into the past to dismantle previous M&As deemed to be harmful. …

Several companies 'taking action to ensure a level playing field among cloud services providers' in Europe Microsoft is facing an antitrust complaint in Europe from France's OVHcloud.…

ESA will need to source a different rocket, lander, and descent stage in time for next window in 2024 The European Space Agency (ESA) has slammed the brakes on its ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin.…

Policy via social media: It's a thing now. Even though Russia won't be able to read it... Chipmaker Qualcomm is the latest tech firm to stop doing business with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.…

Who benefits from changes to the Partner Network? Well, it's not partners... or even their customers Microsoft has "evolved" its Partner Network, but changing the name to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program has done little to dispel concerns over the company's New Commerce Experience (NCE).…

Shutdowns in factories put crunch on weakened supply chain Wednesday's 7.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, caused the temporary shutdown of some major manufacturers, including chip and component-makers Murata, Renesas and Kioxia, in addition to broader manufacturing companies in the area.…

Tribunal finds evidence of 'irregularly concluded software, support agreements' Global application giant SAP is being ordered to pay South Africa's Department of Water and Sanitation ZAR 345m ($23.1m) after a couple of contracts between the two parties were set aside by the courts.…

Agency signals more actions targeting Chinese companies to come in the name of national security Chinese telco Pacific Networks and its subsidiary ComNet must cease all services within the United States within 60 days from Wednesday March 16 following an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).…

Homespun companion Linux system distro gets an update, but stays small – and 1.0 Microsoft has released the March-2022 update for CBL-Mariner, but the version number hasn't budged from 1.0.…

Select all images of you being duped into providing your credentials CAPTCHA puzzles, designed to distinguish people from computer code, are being used to separate people from their login credentials.…

Verified third-party tools do not guarantee compliance position Oracle customers can only use its licensing tools after the company has started to talk to them about software audits or offered license advice. Meanwhile, third-party tools that have been verified by Oracle do not help users in terms of license compliance.…

Businesses targeted elderly, made 750,000 calls to people on Telephone Preference System Five British companies are collectively nursing a £405,000 fine from the UK's data watchdog for making a combined total of 750,000 unsolicited marketing calls targeting vulnerable elderly people.…

An accidental glimpse of things to come or somebody hitting the wrong button? Comment Microsoft's hurried backpedal over advertisements in File Explorer has industry watchers concerned.…

The move follows lack of progress in equality and two resignations, campaign group says A group of activist investors is targeting Salesforce in an effort to force the SaaS CRM giant to become the subject of an independent investigation into its practices regarding racial equality.…

Brit rocketeers get ever closer to that first launch from UK soil A space race of a sort in the UK has picked up pace in recent weeks, as aerospace company Orbex showed off its Kinloss launchpad in February and Skyrora this week opened its Midlothian rocket engine testing facility.…

US biz's license to operate in London up for renewal this month Gig workers have urged London Mayor Sadiq Khan to force Uber to pay drivers at least minimum wage as the ride-hailing biz seeks to renew its license to operate in the British capital.…

Hitting big targets, untouchable, technically proficient. Who will it inspire next? Analysis The Lapsus$ cyber-crime gang, believed to be based in Brazil, until recently was best known for attacks on that country's Ministry of Health and Portuguese media outlets SIC Noticias and Expresso.…

When this baby hits 88 GHz, you're going to see some serious stuff AI hardware slinger SambaNova and software biz DeLorean AI have teamed up to provide smart predictive tools to help clinicians hopefully better care for patients suffering kidney problems.…

$10,000 and Efabless may be what you're looking for Interview The likes of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft can design custom chips and have them manufactured using their billions of dollars in the bank.…

If you want your own custom SmartNIC, knock yourself out, says x86 giant Intel is discontinuing its original lineup of Programmable Acceleration Cards as it turns to an "ecosystem first" strategy that helps customers create their own FPGA-based products, including SmartNICs.…

Watchdog demands $500,000 after millions of people's info stolen and sold The FTC wants the former owner of CafePress to cough up $500,000 after the customizable merch bazaar not only tried to cover up a major computer security breach involving millions of netizens, it failed to safeguard customers' personal information.…

Features aimed at industrial, IoT, autonomous needs MathWorks, maker of the long-standing MATLAB suite, is focusing its latest software updates on reaching beyond its traditional scientific base – and eyeing up autonomous vehicle developers, makers of devices with wireless communications, and others.…

BlackBerry says extortionists erase documents if ransom unpaid BlackBerry security researchers have identified a ransomware family targeting English-speaking victims that is capable of erasing all non-system files from infected Windows PCs.…

IBM's Linux distro giant unable to wrestle domain name from owner IBM's Red Hat cannot prevent Daniel Pocock and his Software Freedom Institute SA from using the domain name WeMakeFedora.org, according to a ruling on Monday.…

An all-FOSS, direct-to-binary compiler for the 63-year-old programming language The newly announced gcobol compiler is a fresh front end for GCC, and builds native binary executables.…

Doing all it can to catch up with AWS and Microsoft Azure for enterprise users Google Cloud is joining VMware's Cloud Universal program, the aim being to make it easier for enterprises to migrate VMware-based workloads to the cloud while allowing them to re-use on-premises license investments.…

Even the sharpest of models fail to melt ice or build a circuit Think your AI agents are actually learning to solve problems? A new benchmark sheds light on what is real when it comes to sophisticated AI.…

On a plus side, their code's not very good A new Linux botnet is using the infamous Log4j vulnerability to install rootkits and steal data.…

Mike Burrows exits Chipzilla to lead advanced graphics at Radeon biz Intel has hired a lot of top graphics talent from rival AMD to build out its discrete GPU business, though apparently it's now AMD's turn to take from the semiconductor giant.…

Aimed at nixing non-compliance penalties, cloud overage costs IBM and IT management specialist Flexera are more closely integrating their respective tech to boost the use of AI and automation to modernize management of IT assets and operations within organizations.…

Permanent daylight savings could be the glitch of the (new) century The US Senate has passed legislation aimed at making Daylight Saving Time permanent, leaving the country in the "spring forward" state from 2023.…

Here’s another reason to do hyperscale thing of offloading network functions to an accelerator Software-defined networking contender Pluribus has ported its Netvisor ONE OS network operating system to Nvidia's BlueField-2 data processing units, a new role for the accelerators.…

Patch flaws and enforce authentication policies, CISA and FBI warn State-sponsored threat actors from Russia over the last year breached a non-governmental organization (NGO) by leveraging multifactor authentication (MFA) defaults and exploiting the PrintNightmare vulnerability in Windows Print Spooler.…

You can trust them, they probably know all the weak spots. Ahem. If Kubernetes is so complicated that even Google is automating its setup, then it's worth paying attention when U.S. spy giant, the National Security Agency (NSA) points to strengthening it.…

Intel to slip into top 10 list with Tower takeover Contract chip manufacturers grew revenue in the fourth quarter of last calendar year largely by raising the prices of wafers in the face of overloaded factories as the semiconductor industry continued its breakneck pace.…

The go-to desktop for Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE improves its fit and polish After the project reorganized its version numbering, GNOME 42 consolidates the ongoing modernization effort. Bear in mind, we're describing the release candidate, so some of the details might change before it comes out.…

Work Trend Index report indicates that things are about to get a little 'messy' Microsoft's second annual Work Trend Index report is out, and it highlights a massive disconnect between leaders, managers and employees.…

US-China research collaborations and startup investments on the up, too AI systems are becoming increasingly larger and complex, but despite the technology's progress, they exhibit higher levels of toxic behaviors, according to the latest AI Index Report.…

Data protection watchdog imposes fine on half-trillion dollar valued Facebook firm Following a breach of data privacy European law, Facebook parent company Meta has received an $18.6m (€17m) fine — representing around 0.055 percent of its quarterly revenue.…

CEO tells The Reg his engineers still have sights on phones to servers SiFive is pulling in nearly $400m in funding this year between a new investment round and the proceeds of a business sale with the ambitious mission of eclipsing rival Arm – and the x86 world of Intel and AMD – with processor designs for everything from smartphones to servers.…

Security vendors now have 5 working days to explain to the Competition and Markets Authority why it's wrong The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) merger inquiry into NortonLifeLock's proposed $8bn acquisition of rival antivirus provider Avast has now closed, with the regulator concluding that a tie-up could indeed reduce competition in the marketplace.…

A $4 microcontroller, you say? Will it run you-know-what? It is with a sense of inevitability that we can confirm somebody has managed to make Doom work on the diminutive RP2040-based Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board.…