The Register

Finally – a purpose for the least-used key on your keyboard Do you remember the days before desktop processors needed heatsinks? Are you wearied by the constant churn of new computer tech that never seems to make things easier?…

No more loyalty deals or spanking customers for going elsewhere The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a final order intended to curb Broadcom's "anticompetitive conduct."…

That thing about discontinuing technical content was all a 'misunderstanding' IBMers were last week treated to a re-enactment of the Hokey Cokey*, sources claim, as staff working on Redbooks technical papers were told of planned reassignment, only to be told days later by the architect of the change that it was all a "misunderstanding."…

Eight years after Snowden, you'll never know how much they spy on you… The US Supreme Court this week refused [PDF] to hear a case that would have forced the country's hush-hush Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to explain its justifications for giving the Feds the right to help themselves to bulk amounts of the public's data.…

Beta and Release Preview Channels receive a fix while Dev gets Windows Subsystem for Android Microsoft has rushed out updates to its Windows 11 beta and release preview channels to deal with an expired digital certificate - while at the same time confirming bleeding-edge testers will as last get the fabled Windows Subsystem for Android.…

Plus: Interpol boasts of infosec companies' help nabbing Cl0p suspects US authorities are dangling a $10m reward for information on the DarkSide gang, while Interpol says half a dozen people were arrested in Ukraine on suspicion of being part of the Cl0p extortionist crew.…

Just like NASA did in spacecraft... and Fujitsu did for mobiles in 2015 Mobe and matress maker Xiaomi has unveiled its latest tech for keeping phones cool – a small heat pipe mechanism called Loop LiquidCool.…

'Anon firm lost your data, don't worry' just makes people more fearful Mystery surrounds the Labour Party ransomware attack, with former party members who left years ago saying their data was caught up in the hack – while official sources refuse to say what really happened.…

A software workaround for an iffy component looms. Sound familiar? Ever had a component spew garbage and had to bodge around it? Engineers appear to be faced with a similar issue as they continue work to rouse the science instruments of the Hubble Space Telescope from their Safe Mode slumbers.…

Some get a halo from the boss. Others barely get a hello Register Debate This week, Register readers debated the motion The Pandemic improved the status of IT workers… forever.…

Brit telco to test out broadband tech in UK labs before customer trials next year Government-owned satellite broadband slinger OneWeb says it is planning to loft 648 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites in the next eight months, after signing terms with BT for a new Distribution Partner Agreement.…

Gimme gimme gimme fried chicken Something for the Weekend, Sir? I have a self-flushing toilet.…

It's on a computer screen. It must be some sort of technical jargon, right? On Call We do like our acronyms and initialisms in the IT world. Some might suggest we conceal the simplest of concepts behind a bewildering array of letters. And sometimes users try to join in. Welcome to On Call.…

Nvidia, though, expects this virtual-reality world to be as vast as the internet Is the Facebook-driven metaverse opportunity for real? Chip makers seemingly have more important things to worry about than a concept that could either take off or emerge as the Myspace of virtual reality.…

When IBM sold it back in 2014, it was a breakeven proposition. Seven years later not much has changed Lenovo has come within $17 million of recording a profit for its Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG), the enterprise hardware division within the PC giant.…

Chinese media wonders why it hasn't been reported in the West - hang on, you're reading this ... China's Ministry of State Security released details this week of three alleged security breaches that saw sensitive data illegally transferred abroad.…

But central bank worries about security, usability – and business continuity 140 million digital wallets capable of storing China's central bank digital currency – the Digital Yuan or E-CNY – have already been issued to individuals, and another ten million businesses have signed up too.…

NASA and SpaceX to resume working on the next lunar lander The US Court of Federal Claims has dismissed Blue Origin’s complaints that NASA unfairly awarded its $2.89bn next-generation lunar lander system contract to SpaceX.…

Email tells bosses to down-level open positions to control costs Exclusive Next year, IBM's Red Hat plans to cut back on hiring senior engineers in an effort aimed largely at controlling costs.…

Pair of 10/10 critical bugs demand your attention, as does a 9.8-rated SSH SNAFU Cisco this week revealed a pair of critical flaws, rated ten out of ten in severity, in its family of Catalyst PON Series Switches Optical Network Terminals.…

All right, which country's next? Google says it will comply with South Korean law by allowing Android apps hosted on Google Play to include third-party in-app billing systems, a decision that shows the dominant app store duopoly – represented by Apple and Google – losing control of their mobile app platforms.…

We're sure everything will be OK, its revenues have only fallen 37 per cent in the past decade IBM has finally cut loose its multi-billion-dollar managed infrastructure business, renamed to Kyndryl, sending 90,000 staffers into a life that is less big and less blue.…

And we're talking about shipped code, not some Insider beta, here It has proved an unfortunate Halloween for Microsoft, with the ghost of an expired certificate haunting Windows 11 users. The upshot is: various built-in programs may stop working properly or cannot be opened at all.…

Another way to make sure the yawns don't get through Microsoft has added a mute button for Teams into the taskbar of the latest Windows 11 preview build.…

Don't Be Evil... unless... Google has changed its mind about dealing with the US Department of Defense and is chasing a juicy chunk of the Pentagon's new Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract.…

What was that, Brad Smith? You're at climate summit COP26 talking about sustainability plans? You're breaking up... Going in a tunnel Microsoft published a report today that highlights the "problem" of users sticking with ageing devices.…

Cruft removed to improve performance Version 13 of the Google-sponsored Angular JavaScript framework is here and the old View Engine renderer is gone, as is IE11 support, making Angular faster and smaller.…

For now, here's an IMG CXT processor with real-time ray-tracing abilities Imagination Technologies says supporting DirectX is becoming a bigger consideration for the company when it comes to designing GPUs.…

Oh and that company-wide cost-cutting programme is 18 months ahead of schedule BT has decided against bringing in an external investor to help with the rollout of fibre networks across Britain, this morning citing lower build costs per premise as the rationale for going it alone via its Openreach division.…

He's in Spain, faces extradition to the US to stand trial A Briton accused of carrying out SIM-swapping attacks to compromise high-profile Twitter users' accounts has been charged with stealing $784,000 in cryptocurrency.…

While 11% plan to take up the package, lack of use cases keep numbers low Three times the number of SAP users in the UK have never heard of RISE with SAP – the service bundle hoped to accelerate cloud adoption – than plan to use it.…

Mechanisms taken for granted on x86 vanish in WASM land, says trio WebAssembly has been promoted for its security benefits, though researchers in Belgium and New Zealand contend applications built in this binary format lack important protections.…

Energy price rises trigger bigger bills at cloud and network provider M247 Think everything is getting more expensive these days? Spare a thought for customers of M247 on the receiving end of a 161 per cent uplift in charges, with rising energy prices blamed.…

But let me tell ya, technology work is better than diggin' a ditch Register Debate Welcome to the latest Register Debate in which writers discuss technology topics, and you the reader choose the winning argument. The format is simple: we propose a motion, the arguments for the motion will run this Monday and Wednesday, and the arguments against on Tuesday and Thursday. During the week you can cast your vote on which side you support using the poll embedded below, choosing whether you're in favour or against the motion. The final score will be announced on Friday, revealing whether the for or against argument was most popular.…

Why are some of Moz's axed projects bigger than its flagship? Comment As Firefox's share of the browser market continues to slide, the Waterfox Project shows some of the ways that Mozilla is failing to listen to its users – and it's far from the only example.…

Azure, Teams, Office integration might offer a leg-up, though Analysis Microsoft scattered tidbits about new features and products over the already well-served enterprise application market during its Ignite virtual shindig running.…

It's a good time to be a wireless communications architect or an AI engineer Apple hasn't put homegrown 5G modems in its iPhones yet, but is already looking for a jump-start on 6G modems.…

Featuring two sidekicks: A rover using Nokia's 4G and a hopping recon bot NASA has selected a ridge close to Shackleton, a deep impact crater on the Moon's South Pole, to conduct its first-ever ice-water-mining expedition, which is expected to blast off late next year.…

Cost of some supplies is up 200 per cent, so vendors start 'protecting margins' Good luck upgrading your network any time in the next year or two: key vendors Arista and Juniper have both warned they're waiting up to 80 weeks – aka 560 days, taking us to some time in May 2023 – to get their hands on some components.…

We're on a highway to RHEL IBM tentacle Red Hat on Wednesday unveiled the beta for version nine of its eponymous Enterprise Linux product, now built from CentOS Stream.…

Came for the people, the supply chain, and with hopes of building new servers, storage, HPC, and 5G kit. Don't mention the increasing geopolitical tension Hewlett Packard Enterprise has made a big new investment in Taiwan, covering hardware design and supply chain smarts.…

Rolls out usual lines about national security being pretext for competitive action, more strident voices keep quiet China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has responded with mild indignation to the USA's decision to revoke the operating licence that allowed China Telcom to operate in the land of the free.…

We drill into what's available in this public preview Ignite Microsoft is extending, as a public preview for now, Azure Virtual Desktop to Azure Stack HCI so that if you want to host remote Windows desktops on your own on-premises equipment using this service, well, you can.…

One lucky bod gets $28,000, on average it's a few hundred bucks each America's consumer watchdog has sent checks totaling nearly $60m to more than 140,000 Amazon drivers who were said to have been screwed out of their tips between 2016 and 2019. The delivery workers have until January to cash them.…

Yeah, that ought to do the trick The US government's Dept of Commerce on Wednesday sanctioned four companies in Israel, Russia, and Singapore for selling software used to break into computer systems and by foreign governments to suppress dissent.…

Promises to stop ordering combustion engine vehicles by 2025 SAP expects its fleet of 27,000 corporate cars to be free of tailpipe emissions by 2030 and will no longer allow the ordering of vehicles with combustion engines from 2025.…

Chief product officer takes over world's palatable social network Updated GitHub CEO Nat Friedman announced today he's leaving the organization on November 15 and will be replaced by chief product officer Thomas Dohmke.…

Endpoint security for firms with under 300 staffers Ignite Sniffing the wind after the large uptick in ransomware attacks across the corporate world, Microsoft said it plans to roll out an SMB version of Defender for Biz.…

Plans to hook up New Zealand's South Island and Indonesia too Submarine cable company Hawaiki is to build a trans-Pacific cable system, dubbed Hawaiki Nui, that links up Southeast Asia, Australasia and North America. It's slated for completion in 2025.…

And you need to do it during a pandemic while working from home How does one rebuild an aeroplane, at 40,000 feet, while it is still full of passengers? That was the question posed by Daniel Tao, head of engineering at Bitbucket, while discussing the source shack's move to AWS data centres.…