The Register

Even in a shipboard COVID lockdown, chowing down on ailing cabin boys is apparently no longer a thing A British government minister has claimed that cannibalism on the high seas should now be a thing of the past, as modern navigation and safety technology have made it very unlikely sailors will find themselves in circumstances where they might want to eat each other.…

But the hair dye market isn't about to implode, there are limits Researchers have found that stress does indeed turn your hair grey, and that taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot, even reversing the process – a discovery with potential ramifications for our understanding of the ageing process.…

Pet parents asked to fork over £75 for the privilege, though Gloucestershire Constabulary has announced it is the first police force in the world to use a centralised doggy DNA database to clamp down on pet theft - but it's relying entirely on a commercial provider for both the tech and the database.…

Chocolate Factory proposes common interchange format for vulnerability data Google on Thursday introduced a unified vulnerability schema for open source projects, continuing its current campaign to shore up the security of open source software.…

That's £3.50 per GB for anything over 25GB Updated We didn't see this on the side of a bus. Five years to the day that Britain heard the results of the Brexit referendum, O2 has caved as the last of the UK's Big Four networks to re-introduce roaming charges in Europe for its customers.…

Containers are visitors from hyperscale-land. They should respect your ways when you invite them in 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.…

Going backwards to the future Fans eagerly awaiting the emission of Windows 11 have been treated to a teaser of today's big event, ending with Microsoft giving us all... the finger?…

Colour Coat accused of lying, being rude and aggressive, and hanging up on cold-call victims A home improvement biz based in East Sussex is facing a fine of £130,000 for making upwards of 900,000 unsolicited marketing calls to individuals and businesses that had enrolled on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).…

For the 3% who craved sweet and sour pork balls, it might be time to stop drinking British revellers have been asked for their favourite hangover cures, with some frankly bizarre results.…

Meanwhile, Porterbrook's Hydroflex trials continue A railway pressure group is calling on the UK government to throw its weight behind a new fleet of hydrogen-powered trains to help modernise existing rolling stock and get the nation's transport policy back on track.…

Attack on an internal system shouldn't put customers at risk, company claims Cheeky clothing firm French Connection, also known as FCUK, has become the latest victim of ransomware, with a gang understood to be linked to REvil having penetrated its back-end - making off with a selection of private internal data.…

Deploying the ultimate stateful code in a stateless environment is a 'tricky business' IDC guru opines A leading analyst has warned big, non-tech companies against database deployments in the Kubernetes, dubbing the approach as “emerging technology” for enterprises.…

Allows cloud PABXs, VPNs, and data sharing, so that locals can participate in multinational workflows India’s department of telecommunications has tweaked some rules in the hope they make the nation a more attractive offshoring destination. The revised rules make it possible for call centres and similar businesses to use resources in the cloud, and more easily operate as part of global customer service organisations.…

If only it were that easy The UK’s advertising watchdog has given a socially distanced, liberally hand-sanitised slap to a firm marketing a gizmo it claimed could clear the air of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease.…

Admins given a whole month to sort it out. Choose wisely — after July 23rd, users won't be told what's happening Google has advised administrators of its Workspace productivity suite that it’s set to improve security of its Drive cloud storage locker, but that the fix will break links to some files.…

New rules kick in for small businesses on July 1 and, despite three years’ warning, the government still sees a need for extra support South Korea, long known for tolerating extremely long working hours, is on track to reduce the number of hours employers can require from their workforce to 52 per week from July 1st.…

Tablets also flattened as punters resume spending on real-world fun Chromebook sales will continue to boom in 2021, but as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes punters will decide they have more exciting ways to spend their money.…

Perhaps instrument-halting failure is due to compute and interconnect hardware, not memory, after all The Hubble Space Telescope may need to boot up a backup computer that's been dormant since 2009 to carry on operations.…

We got hacked and we'll be right back, duo said ... two months ago Up to $3.6bn in Bitcoin has disappeared from a South African cryptocurrency investment outfit as well as the two brothers who ran it.…

It has to take action on takedowns though, prelim ruling on long-running Sarah Brightman spat finds Europe's leading court has partly sided with YouTube regarding copyrighted works posted illegally online in a case that touches on "profound divisions" in how the internet is used.…

And if that doesn't work, terrorism or satanic panic next? Apple, fearing regulators will force it to allow people to sideload whatever apps they like on their own iOS devices, has published a paper arguing about the importance of its oversight. The iGiant also sent a letter to US lawmakers warning of supposed harm if its gatekeeping is disallowed.…

IT managers told when punished Chromebooks are about to die Psychologist Abraham Maslow didn't mention Chromebooks when contriving his hierarchy of needs, and yet they have become essential to ordinary life during the pandemic, with the cheap computing devices being used for homeschooling and remote working.…

British-American infosec renegade faced trial in America for tax evasion British-American software tycoon John McAfee was found dead in his cell in a Barcelona prison on Wednesday.…

Suit may be filed as soon as next week Google is reportedly facing a new civil antitrust suit following a Play Store investigation by several US states.…

Bank of England flies pride flag as it launches new note The UK's new £50 note has entered circulation on the 109th anniversary of the birth of its subject, the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.…

Looks to improve the simplicity with which such things are shared The Linux Foundation has announced two projects with which it aims to help settle the choppy waters of machine learning: the Open Voice Network (OVN), and the CDLA-Permissive-2.0 licence for machine learning datasets.…

Smaller physical footprint to tempt carriers needing to build out 5G Space may be the final frontier, but for telecoms operators it is a pressing concern, particularly those based in countries where land comes at a premium, most notably the UK. Enter Samsung, which has introduced its first all-in-one antenna and radio unit for the European market.…

Boffins looking for changes to cephalopods' symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria on ISS Immunology boffins in the US are hoping to learn the secret of how to keep humans well enough for long enough to live on the Moon or travel to Mars by sending some tiny squid into space.…

Next up, the rocket stage to send mannequin to the Moon The stacking of NASA's monster Moon rocket is continuing in Florida with the launch vehicle stage adapter placed atop the newly vertical core stage.…

MPs and activists join forces to fight 'dangerous' legal threat MPs and anti-censorship campaigners have warned that the British government's Online Safety Bill "mistakes the medium for the message" and will result in algorithms censoring anyone who posts something on social media that could get a Silicon Valley company into trouble.…

The Special Relationship in the form of Android foldables Microsoft's latest foray into the world of mobile phones is going so well that its US store has lopped an eye-watering $800 off the price of the fancy Surface Duo.…

Fast, easy to implement, and knocks attacks like Spectre on the head – what's the catch? Researchers at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science have showcased two new approaches to providing computers with memory protection without sacrificing performance – and they're being implemented in silicon by the US Air Force Research Lab.…

Access Now #KeepItOn campaign thinks that’s a very bad idea The governments of Syria and Sudan have shut down the internet across their nations, apparently to prevent cheating during school exams.…

Once you can only buy the apps you need as containers, it’s game over 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.…

Huge shift in working patterns continues into next year, according to the all-seeing eye of... Gartner The omniscient overlord of IT forecasting otherwise known as Gartner is predicting around a two-thirds increase in working from home compared with pre-pandemic levels.…

El Reg hacks selflessly volunteer to taste-test before and after Pubbino, the San Francisco biz that believes there simply isn't enough tech involved in pulling pints, is talking up another entry in its "Internet of Beer" range: a line-cleaning system powered, it claims, by AI.…

It managed to pay a bit more tax too, which is nice Microsoft's UK tentacle, Microsoft Limited, has continued to generate impressive amounts of cash, according to the company's latest accounts.…

Second public meeting threatened unless dot-UK registry plays ball The founder of a campaign to return dot-UK registry Nominet to its public benefit roots has raised the threat of a second EGM if Nominet doesn't “heed the will of [its] members."…

Judge rules in Chocolate Factory's favour during prelims of 2015-era case Google has won a legal bid to keep its “crown jewel” search ranking algorithms secret in a long-running £1bn competition lawsuit against rival shopping search engine Kelkoo.…

Yeah, y'know, Google Glass wasn't nearly obnoxious enough Facebook has been awarded a US patent titled "Artificial reality hat," which consists of a display screen that hangs from the brim of a cap, as if it were a havelock worn backward.…

For every buck you spend in the Big Red cloud, Larry gives you 25c to spend on support Oracle has introduced frequent clouding points that can be redeemed for support services.…

Pre-installation of Play Store and other apps on Smart TVs and Androids amounts to leveraging dominance, says watchdog India’s Competition Commission has ordered an investigation into Google over the advertising giant’s use of the Android operating system in its smart televisions.…

Give it a year or two, but it will happen, says CEO, as COVID-crushed industries start spending again Nutanix has told investors it has a “clear path to profitability” and predicted it could post black ink in just two years.…

Local carrier Airtel will adopt it — next comes world domination Indian mega-conglomerate the Tata Group has revealed it’s created a 5G networking kit business.…

Developer hits back at researchers’ ‘hypothetical approach’ An algorithm used by hundreds of US hospitals to predict whether or not patients with infections have contracted sepsis is less accurate than its maker claims, according to a published study.…

New approach coming next year ... when complaints have died down Google has scrapped a scheme designed to train and hire engineers from diverse backgrounds – after people who made it through the program to become Googlers complained they were screwed over in pay.…

It's a crook-eat-crook world out there It appears someone is pirating the infamous REvil ransomware by tweaking its files for their own purposes.…

Anonymous US intelligence sources: Yes, we did it Updated Nearly three dozen Iranian media websites have been taken down apparently by the US government.…

US markets watchdog sniffs around potential insider trading, data violations relating to hack US markets watchdog the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has begun a probe into last year's SolarWinds cyberattack, in a bid to find out who else might have been compromised.…

Unlock its potential at The Nutanix Database Summit Promo How much value could you unlock from your database? The fact is too many databases are still tied into complex legacy systems. Not only are these difficult to manage, but they prevent many organisations embarking on a full cloud transformation, with all the benefits that brings in terms of efficiency, agility and scalability.…