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Substitution's 'not a silver bullet' advisor says An IT contractor has lost an appeal [PDF] which found he was an employee in the eyes of HMRC, with the judges agreeing he fell under the new IR35 off-payroll tax rules.…

Company claims 'no current indication' top-secret data was plundered The REvil ransomware gang, thought to be behind an attack on meat producer JBS which netted an impressive $11m payoff, has found another victim. Worryingly, this one works with the US Department of Defence on the nation's nuclear weapons programme.…

Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee asked health secretary Matt Hancock, but he wasn't much help Comment Most people are aware of some things and not aware of other things. But UK health secretary Matt Hancock isn't sure if he's aware of something or not.…

Eurasian Jays mostly unmoved by illusionist jiggery-pokery, more interested in worms Psychology boffins at the University of Cambridge have been pushing back the barriers of understanding via the unlikely-sounding practice of trying to fool birds with magic tricks.…

Book smarts vs street smarts face-off might have been an inside job, claims egghead chief Exclusive Eggheads at high IQ society Mensa have ruled out claims that their website was hacked earlier this year, according to an email seen by The Register.…

You may know them as ‘SmartNICs’ or ‘DPUs’. Intel plans to make ‘em and software that lets 'em drive virtual networks and storage at scale Intel has added “infrastructure processing units” (IPUs) to its list of must-have data centre infrastructure, and promised it’ll build more of them and offer software to put them to work.…

Here’s how HCI and the public cloud can help Promo Public institutions and health bodies face the perpetual challenge of creating ever increasing efficiencies with IT budgets that never grow as fast as they like. The last year has only highlighted the problem and increased the pressure.…

Plus: Alleged Trickbot developer cuffed by US agents In brief The outgoing head of Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad has suggested that Stuxnet wasn't the only spanner in the works his agency put into Iran's nuclear programme.…

Community to think outside the pants After three decades, Coq, a theorem-proving programming language developed by researchers in France, is being fitted for a new name because it has become impossible to ignore that it sounds like bawdy English slang.…

China lashed for ignoring norms, retorts that Western clique isn't playing fair A communiqué issued at the conclusion of the NATO summit has called for China to observe the laws of cyberspace, and set out new standards by which members of the alliance will consider cyberattacks.…

Much bubble, none value, regulator excite Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission has banned dealing in some cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens.…

Private companies to sort out the transportation, US agency's fees are non-trivial NASA is hoping to host more amateur astronauts at the International Space Station, putting them up for as much as two weeks at a time.…

Meltdown over a non-meltdown Analysis You may have seen in the news some panic about a Chinese nuclear reactor going wrong, and a warning of an "imminent radiological threat." Well, don't worry: it's a routine fuel rod problem.…

Infosys-built service was promised to "make the compliance experience more taxpayer friendly" India’s Income Tax Department has acknowledged that its shiny new e-tax portal broke, badly, by authorising an extension for some tax filings and reverting to manual processing of printed documents.…

LinkedIn back in play / Supremes kick case back downstairs / hiQ still at risk The US Supreme Court has offered Microsoft's LinkedIn another chance to prevent hiQ from scraping its public profiles.…

Had trouble getting vertical at the weekend? NASA used a pair of cranes to hoist the SLS core stage Engineers have hoisted the core stage of NASA's mega-rocket, the Space Launch System, vertical ready to bolt on its boosters and roll the stack to the launchpad later this year.…

Chap painted greeting on rooftop... in Sydney Bloody helpful, those Aussies. And jolly friendly too. In fact, they're so damn helpful one bloke painted "Welcome to Perth" in giant capital letters on a rooftop so air passengers about to land at the city airport could look down and see the greeting.…

'Nothing had been determined', says phone giant Samsung is said to be considering delaying the launch of this year's Galaxy S21 FE sub-flagship due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor components.…

Hopes raised in West of an extradition or law enforcement agreement to stem the tide The G7 summit of western countries has called upon Russia to "identify, disrupt, and hold to account those within its borders who conduct ransomware attacks, abuse virtual currency to launder ransoms, and other cybercrimes."…

Lengthy support for enterprises that prefer things just so Ubuntu Pro is coming to Google Cloud, replete with an all-important 10-year maintenance commitment for corporate punters who like things stable.…

Will be transferred to a halfway house, attorney continues to fight for presidential pardon Reality Winner, the former NSA intelligence contractor who leaked evidence of Russian interference in a US Presidential election to the press, has been released from prison.…

Injunction halts introduction of $15-a-month fee for low-income households A new law due to come into force tomorrow that would force broadband providers in New York State to provide net access to low-income households for $15 a month has been put on hold.…

Fines for sending 'core' and 'important' info overseas, although what qualifies remains undefined China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has passed a new data security law requiring companies to seek approval before transferring what it refers to as "core" data overseas.…

Car maker to draw upon its investments in hydrogen fuel tech Honda and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have agreed to embark on a joint feasibility study to supply oxygen, hydrogen, and electricity to humans and rovers in outer space.…

Chocolate Factory presses home its advantage in web-based collaboration Google is extending Workspace, its rebranded productivity and collaboration tools, to "anyone with a Google account", and will introduce Workspace Individual subscriptions with "premium capabilities."…

Analyst: Big 5 manufacturers should be able to shoulder ongoing semiconductor shortage 2020 was a dismal year for the smartphone industry, with sales tanking in the face of the pandemic. But things are now looking up, with Canalys expecting a 12 per cent recovery this year, albeit one not evenly shared by vendors.…

Plus: Biden sets up AI task force, and Waymo expands autonomous trucking operation with new partnership In brief Nvidia has snapped up computer vision startup DeepMap to help build the company's self-driving platform.…

Admits nothing but promises amendments to auto-renewal, refund policies The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has inked a deal with Norton where it will refund customers whose antivirus software subscription was automatically renewed.…

The big get Huawei: telco starts to rip and replace Chinese network maker's kit Vodafone has revealed the first vendors included in its OpenRAN rollout as the telco starts to rip and replace its network infrastructure across Wales and the South East of England.…

Firm provides fresh water and wastewater to millions of Brits IBM, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro are among 13 winners on a £50m deal to help build and manage applications for UK utility Southern Water.…

Wasn't it to be the 'last version of Windows'? Maybe not... Microsoft has updated its product lifecycle documentation to state that Windows 10 Home and Pro will be retired on 14 October 2025.…

Burning dollars faster than liquid oxygen and hydrogen $28m has secured someone a seat on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard, with the mystery bidder scoring the right to breathe the same air as fellow passenger Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.…

My God! It's full of Bork! Bork!Bork!Bork! A black oblong of purest bork glares balefully over shoppers in Plymouth, southwest England. An echo from an alternative future or just big-screen borkage?…

Sutherland Spaceport: A Prime location? Interview British rocketeeer Orbex has spent the best part of the last half decade or so moving towards the goal of a first commercial orbital launch from home soil. While others have shown off engine firings and sub-orbital lobs, Orbex is aiming for orbit with its Prime rocket.…

If we trust it, crooks will too – meaning Plod can get their kiloscrote nab Column Back in October, a call by spy agencies to weaken end-to-end encryption "because of the children" provoked a bit of analysis on how many times UK Home Secretaries had banged the same drum. All of them, it turned out. All of the time.…

Pandemic has opened a can of worms for our work goals with what comes next Feature It may not be your fault that your broadband is crap, but it is your problem when you're interviewing over Zoom or even Teams.…

UPS = Uninterruptable Pager Spying Who, Me? We go Down Under for today's Who, Me? with a slightly NSFW tale of an incomplete checklist, a surprise outage, and an even more surprised gerbil.…

How to bust the bottlenecks without breaking the bank Webcast We all know HPC and AI datasets are going to be massive. But they’re also very different, the former being focused around large, sequential files, while the former are much more random.…

Crims now know what not to trust, and how to stymie future infiltrations Comment In April 1943, Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was killed when the US Air Force shot down the plane carrying him to Balalae Airfield in the Solomon Islands.…

Dr Rachid Yazami shares his predictions for EV batteries with The Register Feature Morocco-born Dr Rachid Yazami has lived all over the world, thanks to an invention he made in his first year as a PhD student – the graphite anode – which is one of the key components that make lithium-ion batteries perform so well.…

As in it's stopped selling the ladders needed to clamber up and do maintenance. Thankfully the internet can help IBM has pulled up the ladder behind customers of its Blue Gene/Q supercomputers.…

There was no big bang – and it could happen to you Feature When designing systems that our businesses will rely on, we do so with resilience in mind.…

Delivery drives to get refund The US Federal Trade Commission on Friday announced the approval a consent order against Amazon that requires the company to pay $61.7m to resolve charges that for two and a half years it took tips intended for Amazon Flex drivers and concealed the diversion of funds.…

Couple now definitely past their Prime The husband of an Amazon financial executive was sentenced on Thursday to 26 months behind bars for insider trading of the web giant's stock.…

And its CAPTCHA alternative challenged by security researcher Following in the rickety footsteps of Fastly, bedeviled by a bug earlier this week, network services biz Cloudflare briefly stumbled on Friday as an elevated error rate interfered with connectivity for customers in Chicago and Los Angeles.…

'Unforeseen server conditions' blamed Attendees at this week's Women In Technology Online Festival were trying to watch keynote speaker Michelle Obama when the stream crashed within seconds of starting, leaving many unable to see the former US First Lady at all.…

Utilities watchdog launches consultation that may affect green island's mega bit barns Ireland could be facing frequent power cuts following a warning from the country's Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) that data centres are having a "major impact on the Irish electricity system."…

Well, that's one way to do it The government of Pakistan's Punjab region has a new weapon up its sleeve in the fight against vaccine hesitancy: blocking the mobile service of anyone who refuses to get jabbed.…

... lower house, the State Assembly, is not likely to pass the bill The New York State Senate has approved landmark right-to-repair legislation which forces original equipment manufacturers to provide schematics, parts, and tools to independent repair providers and consumers.…

Even nuclear missile attacks came with a 4-minute heads-up Comment Britain has told the UN that international cyber law should allow zero-notice digital punishment directed at countries that attack others' infrastructure.…