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Civilizations detectable at galactic distances could harness all of a star's energy output, boffins reckon Looking for life in the Milky Way is so 20th century - today's alien-hunters are going intergalactic to look for signs of alien intelligence....

But users aren't optimistic it will land softly VMware Explore I've attended VMware's annual conference every year since 2007 and this year the event had a very different flavor....

Apparently made over 100 fake crime reports and bomb threats The US government has indicted two men for allegedly reporting almost 120 fake emergencies or crimes in the hope of provoking action by armed law enforcement agencies....

The setback won't stop us from banking billions, CFO insists Nvidia has confirmed earlier reports that its Blackwell generation of GPUs suffered from a design defect that adversely impacted the yields of the hotly anticipated accelerators....

Google researchers note similarities, can't find smoking-gun link Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has spotted an interesting pattern: A Kremlin-linked cyber-espionage crew and commercial spyware makers exploiting specific security vulnerabilities in pretty much the same way....

Moore's Law may be running out of steam, but there are still knobs to turn and levers to pull Hot Chips Speaking at Hot Chips this week, AMD president Victor Peng addressed one of the biggest challenges facing the semiconductor industry as it grapples with growing demand for ever larger AI models: power....

Sordid search history 'evidence' in case that could see him spend 35 years for extortion and wire fraud A former infrastructure engineer who allegedly locked IT department colleagues out of their employer's systems, then threatened to shut down servers unless paid a ransom, has been arrested and charged after an FBI investigation....

Chocolate Factory claims rival is trying to revive cases it's already lost Yelp has waded through legal floodgates opened by the Department of Justice's antitrust victory with a lawsuit of its own, alleging Google is monopolizing local search and advertising markets....

Benioff sees 'very high margin opportunity' in bid to 'monetize' productivity gains Salesforce is considering a new charging model based on AI agent conversations as it attempts to allay investor concerns that improving productivity among users will lead to them buying fewer license seats....

Google revises Chrome Vulnerability Rewards Program with higher payouts for bug hunters Google's Chrome Vulnerability Rewards Program (VRP) is now significantly more rewarding - with a top payout that's at least twice as substantial....

iPhone-like functionality coming to other devices on the network soon Verizon has teamed up with another satellite operator to offer US customers a commercial direct-to-device messaging service for when a terrestrial cell network is not available, starting this fall....

Time to make e-commerce great again instead? Mikhail Parakhin, the former Windows boss who pledged to "make Start Menu great again" before departing Microsoft shortly after, has popped up as CTO of e-commerce outfit Shopify....

Insists it's not cutting jobs and pays harder-to-automate people more with AI savings Buy-now-pay-later outfit Klarna's CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is so thrilled with the performance of AI at his business that he's planning to shrink the human headcount by half - and predicts he won't be alone....

French police reckon financial system targeted during Summer Games Nearly four weeks after the cyberattack on dozens of French national museums during the Olympic Games, the Brain Cipher ransomware group claims responsibility for the incident and says 300 GB of data will be leaked later today....

Scottish provider promises no hidden fees, full control, and safe haven for data British hosting biz DataVita has launched what it calls "National Cloud," a service offering clients data residency within the UK, and claims to have full transparency over costs, with no hidden fees or egress charges....

Isn't the education system in enough trouble already? Updated The UK government is set to equip teachers with AI tools to help them "mark and plan lessons."...

UK grocer suffers IT issues with clothing orders, self-scanning, and store picker app The UK's third-largest grocery retailer continues to see its IT operations beset with problems as it struggles with its fraught divorce from US retail giant Walmart....

As the hardware got more capable, the messes got more expensive Part 2: The 16-bit era Welcome back to The Reg FOSS desk's roundup of the slip-ups and missteps from the dawn of the microcomputer industry onward - at least those that are most memorable to us....

Space boffins want pollution from the likes of Starlink regulated Astronomy researchers from several US universities have joined a campaign coordinated by US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) to pause low Earth satellite launches and convince the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider exempting swarms of small satellites from environmental review requirements....

Rules on cross border data transfers have European businesses scratching their heads The European Union and China have launched an initiative aimed at addressing issues faced by European companies in the Middle Kingdom related to the transfer of non-personal data....

Still growing in China, ramping Hopper prods and predicting Blackwell billions soon Nvidia has again achieved triple-digit year-over-year growth, but its expansion is slowing....

Total revenue for Q2 grew 32 percent CrowdStrike's major meltdown a month ago doesn't look like affecting the cyber security vendor's market dominance anytime soon, based on its earnings reported Wednesday....

Virtzilla's sales swing decisively to the Cloud Foundation bundle VMware Explore Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has told members of VMware's user group that public clouds are not entirely happy with his private cloud push....

Service takes another dive just as settlement is announced US telco giant AT&T has reached a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission and will pay nearly $1 million after shutting down 911 emergency calls in four states last year....

CrowdStrike, other vendors, friendly govt reps...but not anyone would can tell you what happened op-ed Microsoft will host a security summit next month with CrowdStrike and other "key" endpoint security partners joining the fun - and during which the CrowdStrike-induced outage that borked millions of Windows machines will undoubtedly be a top-line agenda item....

If you haven't deployed August's patches, get busy before others do Windows users who haven't yet installed the latest fixes to their operating systems will need to get a move on, as code now exists to exploit a critical Microsoft vulnerability announced by Redmond two weeks ago....

Financial research org labels server-maker a serial recidivist', alleges quality product problems Server-maker Super Micro Computer has warned investors it's not able to meet deadlines for its annual report due to issues with its internal financial reporting....

The proof of concept shows promise despite big limitations A team from Google and Tel Aviv University have developed a generative AI game engine capable of simulating the cult classic DOOM at more than 20 frames per second because research....

Seeks customizable cloud and less lock-in US auto insurer GEICO has decided to migrate from VMware to OpenStack....

The government-backed crew also enjoys ransomware as a side hustle Iranian government-backed cybercriminals have been hacking into US and foreign networks as recently as this month to steal sensitive data and deploy ransomware, and they're breaking in via vulnerable VPN and firewall devices from Check Point, Citrix, Palo Alto Networks and other manufacturers, according to Uncle Sam....

Because who needs yet another lawsuit? Elon Musk's X has caved to requests from several US Secretaries of State and updated Grok AI to no longer push out misinformation about the 2024 presidential election....

Want a bot to pick engaging content and immunity from liability? Sorry, no A US appeals court has issued an opinion that could have wide-ranging implications for social media platforms, finding that content selected for users by TikTok's algorithms doesn't qualify for Section 230 protection....

Authorities probing unwanted intrusion; hard questions ahead Dick's Sporting Goods, America's largest retail chain for outdoorsy types, has admitted that it suffered a cyberattack last week....

Major funding backs printer giant's microfluidics work as market waits to see if regular printing revs recover HP Inc is in line for $50 million from the US CHIPS Act fund for a microfluidics facility it operates to develop technology for applications such as cell research and pharmaceutical development....

Stop us if you've heard this one before NASA is receiving yet another Moon-related kicking. This time, it is over the Mobile Launcher 2 (ML-2) project, on which the agency plans to assemble and launch the beefier versions of its Space Launch System....

Significant improvements to Microsoft's in-house Linux may follow Microsoft's in-house professional networking site is moving to Microsoft's in-house Linux. This could mean that big changes are coming for the former CBL-Mariner distro....

Windows giant continues march away from on-prem and into a cloudy future Microsoft is to discontinue the Microsoft Action Pack and Microsoft Learning Pack on January 21, 2025, sending partners off to potentially pricier and cloudier options....

Prompt injection, ASCII smuggling, and other swashbuckling attacks on the horizon Microsoft has fixed flaws in Copilot that allowed attackers to steal users' emails and other personal data by chaining together a series of LLM-specific attacks, beginning with prompt injection....

Business left Europe last year, but remains ticking away Fujitsu this week announced 16 new business notebooks, desktops, tablets, and workstations....

This is despite the German vendor's preferred upgrade path There is an even split for large enterprise customers of SAP ERP systems between on-prem and the public cloud - the German vendor's preferred upgrade path - according to NTT Data, a major global SI and partner....

Forget wrist acrobatics, we need smarter wake word detection and on-device voice recognition Opinion Apple is gearing up for its annual fall event, where new iPhone and Apple Watch models traditionally make their debut. This year marks a significant milestone: It's been 10 years since the launch of the original Apple Watch. To commemorate this anniversary, the tech giant is expected to unveil a special edition, unofficially named the Apple Watch X....

A personal collection of the memorable missteps and fumbles Part 1: The eight-bit era You'll find below an informal roundup of the slip-ups and missteps that stick in the mind of The Reg FOSS desk, from the dawn of the microcomputer industry onwards. We are certain that we've missed plenty - let us know your favorites....

'Enjoy the footage. It has cost us quite some money to generate' With impressive speed and candor, Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has provided an update on the anomaly that caused last week's rocket firing at SaxaVord in Shetland, Scotland, to end explosively....

Phew! Consumer-grade tracking devices are good for more than finding your keys and stalking Theft of packages is an ongoing problem, so one California woman tried a high tech solution to the problem - and her use of Apple's consumer-grade AirTags tracking devices led to two arrests....

Weak roadmap, tricky migration path, and Broadcom dependencies add up to uncertainty Analyst firm Gartner has advised customers of Omnissa - the company spun out from VMware's end-user compute business - that they need to take stock because the new org isn't yet able to offer a strong roadmap....

Asia Internet Coalition asks for rethink of social media licensing law with the old 'You'll scare away investors' line - a week after AWS opened a region The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), a lobby group whose members include Google, Meta, Amazon, Twitter (aka X), LinkedIn, Apple, and other Big Tech players, has called on the prime minister of Malaysia to rethink laws requiring social media and instant messaging providers to secure operating licenses....

Ground stations are the perfect place for the Great Firewall to block things China finds unpleasant The multiple constellations of broadband-beaming satellites planned by Chinese companies could conceivably run the nation's "Great Firewall" content censorship system, according to think tank The Australian Strategic Policy Institute. And if they do, using the services will be dangerous....

What good is going fast if you can't get past the next rack? In modern AI systems, using PCIe to stitch together accelerators is already too slow. Nvidia and AMD use specialized interconnects like NVLink and Infinity Fabric for this reason - but at the 900-plus GB/sec these links push, copper will only carry you so far....

Frances Haugen says navigating the digital world requires a North Star Frances Haugen, a transparency and accountability advocate known for blowing the whistle on Facebook, believes the tech industry needs to find a North Star to navigate through ethical and privacy risks....

Shove 32 of 'em in a box and you've got nearly 24 petaFLOPS of FP8 perf Hot Chips RISC-V champion Tenstorrent offered the closest look yet at its upcoming Blackhole AI accelerators at Hot Chips this week, which they claim can outperform an Nvidia A100 in raw compute and scalability....