The Register

International Tea. The world isn't about to suddenly start appreciating you "It's International Tea Day!" I joyously proclaimed as I bounded into the kitchen, trying my best to sound like I had been counting the days rather than learning of it a couple of hours ago.…

British border search law strikes again The leader of far-right political group Britain First has been handed a judicial slap on the wrist after refusing to give his phone PIN to police at Heathrow Airport.…

Paper released on proof-of-concept of 100 pixels, each with three nanowires Scientists at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology claim to have developed a robotic eye they say mimics the equivalent human organism and even out-performs it on some measures.…

And guess which department bought 10,000 O365 licences? Key British government departments have bought thousands of new devices to cope with the COVID-19-fuelled homeworking boom – as well as signing up for unprecedented numbers of accounts with videoconferencing services.…

Real-time collaboration in Office 365 but .NET developers sidelined in favour of JavaScript Build An intriguing technology preview at Microsoft's just-finished Build event is Fluid Framework – but the company has not done a great job of communicating what exactly it is.…

Microsoft, BIND, Google, Cloudflare, Amazon, others fix up software A new vulnerability has been found in the design of the world's domain-name system that potentially can be exploited to flood websites off the internet.…

25kV + lots of wiggly amps = big local magnetic field A commercial drone fell from the sky after a flight across a railway line threw its internal compass into confusion.…

Dupa ton va rugam sa lasati un mesaj Efforts to rectify Xiaomi Mi 9 users losing the ability to connect to the cellular network after a Vodafone-issued patch have had mixed results, with some punters able to use their phones as normal but others suffering weird side effects.…

Lots of previews and coming-soons, but is it too little, too late? Build Microsoft's scattergun approach to IoT continued at the company's virtual Build shindig with Azure IoT Central gaining new toys, updates for Digital Twins, and Azure RTOS reaching General Availability.…

Don’t stand so close to me as-a-service, with added blockchain COVID-19 is spurring new types of wearable hardware.…

A simpler alternative to site slurping Boffins at MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a tool called ScrAPIr to help simplify access to online data available through application programming interfaces, or APIs.…

Public health agencies get green light to emit software using joint-developed tech Analysis Apple and Google have officially released their Exposure Notification API, a joint technology project to allows public health organizations to build mobile apps capable of efficient and anonymous coronavirus contact tracing via Bluetooth.…

Sigh. How many users did it have before it started this stuff? Zoom has outlined more about its efforts to improve its security.…

Boffin immortalized, praised for her 'leadership and vision' Video NASA has renamed its forthcoming Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) after the agency’s first Chief of Astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman, who drove the Hubble project and pushed for a computing-based approach to sky scanning.…

Hey Tmall Genie, spike my cholesterol, then coalesce my web empire with voice commands Alibaba will invest $1.4bn into its smart speaker line, including a model capable of ordering KFC for breakfast.…

Japanese mission also carrying rolling remote-control robot atop last of a famous rocket family The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency today (JAXA) said it successfully launched the last of its H-II transfer vehicles and a to the International Space Station, carrying the unusual cargo of a remote-controllable rolling robot and a Wi-Fi-in-space experiment.…

Pah, fine, OK, we’ll do what you say... in marketing, pouts telco to NARB AT&T has been officially slapped down by America's National Advertising Review Board (NARB) for its 5G Evolution campaign in which it branded its phone and network 5G E, despite not deploying full 5G technology.…

It was a software bug, insists telco, as attorneys walk with most of the money Literal locked-down market biz Securus Technologies has settled a class-action lawsuit over illegally recorded prison phone calls, promising to improve its systems while avoiding a massive damages bill stretching to tens of millions of dollars.…

I’m sorry, I will continue ignoring that question Apple may still be recording and transcribing conversations captured by Siri on its phones, despite promising to put an end to the practice nine months ago, claims a former Apple contractor who was hired to listen into customer conversations.…

'Serious questions' over security and how it would help supply chain The construction of a $12bn semiconductor factory in Arizona owned and operated by TSMC has prompted a group of Democrat senators to probe whether the Taiwanese giant was lured with the promise of financial incentives.…

Now about that ageing software estate and those lucrative licences... Microsoft has acquired UK robotic process automation (RPA) specialist Softomotive for an undisclosed sum, snatching a bigger foothold in a market attracting interest from investors and other large software vendors.…

When you go will you send back a rocket from Edinburgh? Blighty is preparing for take-off as Edinburgh-based rocket-botherer Skyrora test-fired its Skylark-L rocket from a location in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.…

More than you could ever want to NOA about Google Cloud Platform Next on Air As the tech industry ponders how to hold virtual events in place of the usual big barn jamborees, Google has come up with its own take on death by G Suite Slides: a nine-week digital event called Next on Air.…

Meanwhile, PowerToys gets the Run Build Microsoft celebrated Build by emitting the first stable release of its new Windows Terminal and a getting-there incarnation of its handy set of PowerToys utilities.…

Plus: Serco plays email fail game by mass-mailing human contact tracers; NCSC gives feedback on feedback about beta app Analysis Worried about identifiable personal data from your coronavirus contact-tracing app making it into a British government database? Fear not! The Ministry of Defence is sanitising it all first.…

How to defend your organization from attack Webcast We’ve been hearing about ransomware for years now. You may even personally know a company that has been a victim and quietly paid up, and you may even know someone who’s told you not to worry. “It’s OK if you have a good backup,” they say.…

Linux envy? And why not use existing ones like Chocolatey? Build Microsoft has said it will push out a new package manager - now in preview - that sounds useful but raises some awkward questions and issues.…

Subdomain takeover possible, says infosec bod At the end of March, video chat app Houseparty, owned by Epic Games, responded to unsubstantiated reports that user accounts had been hacked – by offering a $1m bounty to anyone able to prove the rumors were part of a coordinated campaign to smear the company.…

iGiant would have to show it has learned from Google's failures Comment The word on the street is that Apple is developing new augmented-reality glasses, with the work at an advanced stage. Prototypes, we're told, have been made and Cupertino is aiming for a 2021/2022 release. There's also a name: Apple Glass.…

Driver code open-sourced Build Microsoft has followed up the crowd-pleasing announcement of GUI and GPU-enablement for Linux apps running on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 with details of the tweaks needed to make the magic happen.…

Industry attempts pivot to beer gardens and pizza, but it's easy to recreate the vibe from the comfort of your own home Despite being capital of European coronavirus cup champion Germany, a question mark looms over Berlin's world-famous clubbing scene, where thousands used to dance, sweat, and bosh drugs together nightly.…

And we will change your tax forever, no need to delay ya... nothing's gonna stop us now UK MPs have ignored calls to delay the implementation of IR35 tax reforms by two years meaning the off-payroll legislation remains set to come into force on 6 April 2021.…

Doug Loverro leaves after less than six months in charge Douglas Loverro, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) has quit after less than six months in the post and less than two weeks before SpaceX are due to launch humans to the ISS.…

Maybe no social media apps does it for you – in which case, that'll be £379.99 Huawei has confirmed UK pricing and availability of its latest mid-range blower, the P40 Lite 5G, a pared-down version of this year's flagship with tapered price tag to match – starting at £379.99.…

AV maker denies allegation, says researcher is 'looking for attention' Trend Micro is on the defensive after it was accused of engineering its software to cheat Microsoft's QA testing, branding the allegation "misleading."…

Huawei's baby goes 'lifestyle' For much of its existence, Chinese smartphone brand Honor has tried to distinguish itself from Huawei, its parent company. The latest manifestation of that effort is the launch of a new ecommerce platform in the UK, paired with a smattering of lifestyle IoT products. Oh, and it's launching a new 16.1-inch laptop aimed at young professionals.…

IT asset management group aims to help users negotiate service deals, navigate software licensing Representatives from Toyota, Danske Bank and Procter & Gamble are among members of a new professional body that aims to help IT user groups negotiate cloud service deals and software licensing with vendors.…

'We don't want the system to rely on the individual integrity of any minister, ministerial team, or government' Harriet Harman, chair of the UK's Joint Committee on Human Rights and former Labour Deputy Leader, has redoubled calls on the British government to ensure any COVID-19 contact-tracing app sufficiently protects users' privacy.…

Record pre-tax profits, but data center group still struggling as HCI commodifies Lenovo has reported mixed success in its full-year 19/20 results and Q4 numbers.…

Even microSD will hit nearly 2GB/s, which will make for mighty fine rPis The SD Association, which oversees the design of SD cards, has emitted version 8.0 of its specification that promises to accelerate the mini-memory storage standard to a tick under 4GB/s.…

Plus: Web giant hears developers' extension concerns, ignores them Google released Chrome 83 on Tuesday after skipping version 82 entirely due to coronavirus-related challenges, bringing with it security for DNS queries, a revised extension interface that developers dislike, and a few other features.…

Which appears to involve buying lots of AI-infused Microsoft SaaS Microsoft’s Jeffrey Snover invented PowerShell, had a big hand in the development of Windows Server, was chief architect for big bits of Azure and has been hailed as a Technical Fellow of the software titan.…

This big beast has more than '285,000 CPU cores, 10,000 GPUs' Build Microsoft has spun up a custom AI supercomputer in its Azure cloud for OpenAI that ranks within the top five publicly known most powerful supers on Earth, it is claimed.…

You wanted robo-butlers, you got robo-object-recognizers Facebook has revamped Marketplace, a platform where users can buy and sell stuff, with a bunch of AI-powered features that, it claims, can automatically recognize and label objects in pictures as well as transform 2D images into a 3D view.…

VMware Cloud on Dell EMC now offers full-rack rigs and gruntier hosts VMware and Dell have revealed version 2.0 of their combined on-prem cloud, and upgraded it to handle meatier workloads.…

Aims to fill post-pandemic coffers and level the local playing field The Philippines will consider a digital services tax after the head of the nation’s Ways and Means Committee, Joey Salceda, proposed one as a measure to increase the nation’s post-pandemic tax base.…

'Digital diary' with QR-code check-ins for now, wireless-capable upgrade in the works The New Zealand government has released a new digital check-in tool to enable Kiwis to keep a digital log of their movements.…

Jobs biz accused of pressuring women into sleeping with managers, discrimination, ignoring complaints Indeed has been sued by a former female employee who said she was raped by a manager in her first two weeks at the dot-com – and described the internal culture as toxic, sexually charged, and misogynistic.…

50-plus advocacy groups call on US House of Reps to slap limits on surveillance law Congress has been urged to introduce a measure that would require the FBI to get a warrant before agents can review Americans’ internet browsing and search histories – just days after an amendment to do that fell by one vote in the Senate.…

Developers, get ready to hook into Windows giant's cloud Build Microsoft has announced a new App Service for Azure, now in preview, designed for applications built using the JAMstack pattern.…