The Register

Plus: AI systems can identify different chess players by their moves and more In brief California’s Department of Motor Vehicles said it’s “revisiting” its opinion of whether Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving feature needs more oversight after a series of videos demonstrate how the technology can be dangerous.…

Laser experiments show their magnetic fields shielding their surfaces from radiation last longer Life on Super-Earths may have more time to develop and evolve, thanks to their long-lasting magnetic fields protecting them against harmful cosmic rays, according to new research published in Science.…

Let's not mention on-premise licences.... ERP specialist SAP saw Q4 cloud revenue jump 28 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier to hit €2.61bn…

Latest iteration of Texas-led antitrust complaint against Google expands claims of bad behavior The alleged 2017 deal between Google and Facebook to kill header bidding, a way for multiple ad exchanges to compete fairly in automated ad auctions, was negotiated by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and endorsed by both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (now with Meta) and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, according to an updated complaint filed in the Texas-led antitrust lawsuit against Google.…

It's blowback time again China's cold war with the US on chips isn't slowing down the country's rapid growth in semiconductors, the Semiconductor Industry Association said this week.…

Machine learning to propel us into glorious era of scientific discovery Alibaba has published a report detailing a number of technology trends the China-based megacorp believes will make an impact across the economy and society at large over the next several years. This includes the use of AI in scientific research, adoption of silicon photonics, the integration of terrestrial, and satellite data networks among others.…

The bill calls for concise, machine readable summaries of how websites and apps use client data Almost no one bothers to read the Terms of Service agreements on websites so a group of US lawmakers on Thursday proposed a bill to require that commercial websites and mobile apps translate their legalese into summaries that can be more easily read by people and by machines.…

Cybercrook gang has 'ceased to exist' says Putin's military service Russia's internal security agency said today it had dismantled the REvil ransomware gang's networks and raided its operators' homes following arrests yesterday in Ukraine.…

It took two years for Big Red to find five breaches A US court has found Oracle support specialist Rimini Street in contempt of court and ordered it to pay $630,000 in sanctions – peanuts for the $40bn-revenue Big Red software company.…

Paperwork needs sorting for a launch from the UK Virgin Orbit has managed a third successful mission as the company deployed seven satellites into orbit from its LauncherOne rocket.…

US (and Canadian) fears are uniquely Leftpondian, it seems 5G mobile phone emissions won't harm airliners, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has said, dampening down excitement in the US about mobile masts interfering with airliners' altimeters.…

Covered outdoor workspaces can be so... bracing Google is splashing the cash in the UK with a billion-dollar purchase of a London property as the ad biz looks to the office as "a place for in-person collaboration and connection."…

Contractors say they haven't been paid, and are in the dark too Contractors employed via umbrella company Parasol Group are increasingly nervous about a multi-day outage of some IT systems used to process payroll, with several suspecting a security attack as the root cause.…

Despite threatening messages nothing's been leaked, say victims A "massive" cyber attack on Ukraine caught the world's eye this morning as the country's foreign ministry said its website, among others, had been taken down by unidentified hackers.…

Local 5G initiative lets orgs deploy on different frequencies from mobile firms HPE has convinced a Japanese telecoms provider to operate its 5G stack as a testbed for private networks the carrier intends to offer to business customers.…

Home Office IT units confused over who is fulfilling the vital role The UK government's ePassport airport gate upgrade programme has no system integrator, a hardware supplier has said, while the Home Office and two of its IT units seem confused about who should be fulfilling the critical role.…

Time to back up those PDFs you've been hoarding Worrying changes are afoot for e-comics vendor ComiXology as Amazon finally gets round to asserting copy control – meaning no more downloads of unprotected comics, even if you've paid for them.…

Recovery of one out of two bonuses will stop, but what about those already affected? Indian IT services giant HCL Technologies has quietly removed some of the controversial clauses from its HR policy revealed by The Reg last week, which required resigning employees to pay back bonuses.…

Tech giant promises to create an implementation plan based on outcome Microsoft's board of directors has hired a law firm to review its sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies and practices following a shareholder proposal.…

So not keen then? Vivaldi will not provide crypto-wallets in its browser because it doesn't want users to participate in digital coin trading – something CEO Jon von Tetzchner desribes as "at best a gamble and at worst a scam".…

Get ready for a new 'experience'... Heads up, OneDrive-using Mac fans: Microsoft has begun rolling out a new Files On-Demand "experience", and you can't disable it.…

The Register talks to co-founder about supply chains and EV assembly Interview Supply chain woes continue to batter the tech industry but that didn't deter the makers of the diminutive Microlino from introducing a new electric vehicle amid a pandemic and chip shortage.…

Stay in your lane? Or check for a shoddy connection job? On Call A warning from the past in today's On Call. Helpfulness is not always rewarded with a pat on the back and a slap-up meal on expenses. Sometimes the Somebody Else's Problem field* is best left alone.…

At the White House Open Source Summit, the Chocolate Factory floated a few ideas to make that happen In conjunction with a White House meeting on Thursday at which technology companies discussed the security of open source software, Google proposed three initiatives to strengthen national cybersecurity.…

Cupertino loses second chip guru Apple's having a problem retaining top chip personnel, with the latest defection being CPU architect Mike Filippo going to Microsoft.…

Customers shouldn't need to wait seven days before being told The US Federal Communications Commission is considering imposing stricter rules requiring telecommunications carriers to report data breaches to customers and law enforcement more quickly.…

Those critical AWS flaws that exposed data and broke tenant separation? All fixed! Two serious security vulnerabilities were recently found in AWS services, but because they were responsibly reported and the cloud biz responded quickly, no harm appears to have been done.…

Indian IT consultancies say biz is booming as more customers consider cloud Three of India's IT service giants – Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro – held results calls yesterday revealing a booming business with room for multiple players.…

Execs foresee fewer kinks in the supply chain this year? Perhaps Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will hike capital spending by a nearly third in 2022 to build out production capacity in the expectation that demand for chips keeps flooding in.…

Time to move, but be warned – not everything has survived the 'modern experience' It appears that today's victim of the Chocolate Factory axeman is legacy Google Voice for personal accounts.…

Plus three other suspects nicked in raids today Ukrainian police have arrested five people on suspicion of operating a ransomware gang, including a husband-and-wife team, following tipoffs from UK law enforcement.…

Schrems II ruling continues to trouble transatlantic data sharing The Austrian data protection authority has ruled that use of Google Analytics by a German company is in breach of European law in light of the Schrems II EU-US data sharing ruling.…

300-year-old institution to be dragged into the 21st century Lloyd's, the world's largest insurance marketplace, has contracted DXC Technology to digitise its processes as part of a multi-year effort to move on from a largely paper-based, analogue way of working.…

Start as you mean to go on, Microsoft Updated Microsoft's first Patch Tuesday of 2022 has, for some folk, broken Hyper-V and sent domain controllers into boot loops.…

The golden days of unbridled growth in Chinese tech companies is over Tencent CEO Pony Ma Huateng referred to his Chinese multinational company as "ordinary" and replaceable in a leaked company speech given at the 2021 end of year employee meeting.…

Plans for new online shop get seal of approval despite Microsoft Dynamics delays UK tabletop wargames specialist Games Workshop has published the latest chapter in the long-running saga of how mighty IT warriors valiantly battled the intransigent forces of ERP.…

Northants man surprised to hear former biz address used Some companies will go to great lengths to hide business expansion plans, but it appears AWS may have namechecked a defunct UK business in efforts to conceal a planning application for a new data centre.…

Because they tried to call it Potify It's back to the drawing board for a cannabis dispensary software company after an attempt to register the trademark "Potify" attracted the ire of music streaming platform Spotify.…

Survey shows majority of UK firms have lost at least half of their contractors over tax reform The number of independent UK contractors assessed with the government's controversial CEST tool has fallen, according to a survey published today.…

Huntress Labs tips some loose change into vuln-spotters' cup The Dutch Initiative for Vulnerability Disclosure has scored $100k towards its founder's hope of a nationwide bug bounty available for anything at all.…

Apache PLC4X creator ends free support, asks for payment for his work Yet another developer of open source software has tired of companies utilizing the code he helps maintain without giving anything back to support the project.…

Angry punter wants his money back Cryptocurrency startup EthereumMax and top celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather Jr are accused in a proposed class-action lawsuit of colluding in a pump-and-dump scheme that scammed victims.…

If at first you don't succeed, you're probably the FTC The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust complaint that Facebook, er, Meta operates as a monopoly will be heard by the courts after the US watchdog's initial lawsuit was dismissed.…

Bernalillo County's Metropolitan Detention Center still recovering from infection Bernalillo County, New Mexico, has been unable to comply with the settlement terms of a 27-year-old lawsuit over prison conditions because of a ransomware attack last week that saw prisoners back under manual control.…

Tells investors it has secured supplies to full demand shortfall Nvidia chief financial officer (CFO) Colette Kress says the company has only just begun to make an impact in the server market, and sees a huge opportunity for GPU acceleration there.…

But is industry wealth, a skills shortage or a self-selecting sample creating the result? As the world struggles to free itself from the clutches of a global pandemic, maybe it's possible to look on the bright side — at least if you work for a gang of global tech companies.…

Don't worry, there is a point to this The LibreOffice project has confirmed support for two new languages in the forthcoming version 7.3, Klingon and Interslavic.…

Space is hard While there were whoops and cheers for the James Webb Space Telescope, other missions on Mars and in orbit around the Earth have fared less well in recent weeks.…

Another one who pleaded autism in mitigation A software engineer was this week jailed in the UK for two years after pleading guilty to accessing women and children's webcams, Skype accounts and iCloud backups for more than a decade.…

341 million units sold last year, up 15% The humble PC was one of the hottest selling tech items in 2021 with shipments into the channel jumping 15 per cent globally to 341 million amid a pandemic that continues to force people to work, study, and play at home.…