The Register

Space is about to looking a lot clearer, thanks to adaptive optics Astronomers who devised a technique to capture direct images of nearby potentially habitable exoplanets have found what could be a world orbiting a star a mere 4.3 light years away from Earth in the Alpha Centauri group.…

Now in preview, says Microsoft Microsoft has nudged out an update to the C#/WinRT NuGet package and added a preview of C#/WinRT authoring to an otherwise relatively humdrum release.…

'We cannot guarantee to suppliers any business through this Commercial Agreement' The UK government has made a £2bn contract award for "Digital Outcomes and Specialists" as part of a one-year framework agreement.…

Google Cloud Platform account required, API key comes with Ts&Cs Hands On Google has big ambitions for its new Open Source Vulnerabilities database, but getting started requires a Google Cloud Platform account and there are other obstacles that may add friction to adoption.…

Board of dot-UK registry operator scrambles to save itself Analysis The board of .uk registry operator Nominet has offered a series of concessions to its members in an effort to win back their support in advance of an extraordinary meeting that could see most of them fired.…

Tune in next week and you’ll be able to talk storage like a cloud native Webcast If you haven’t already adopted containers and Kubernetes, they’re probably on your agenda for this year.…

Upgrades to version 7.0 are going to require your full attention, especially if you’re fond of VGA output VMware has published new and tighter security configuration guidance for its flagship vSphere private cloud suite.…

Could the lucrative era of light-touch regulation finally be over for Google and Facebook? On Wednesday, Wojciech Wiewiorówski, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), opined that Europe's Digital Services Act proposal should go further in its effort to promote online transparency and safety by eliminating targeted advertising.…

Test on tricky route planned for later in 2021, followed by productisation Samsung has floated the prospect of soon selling autonomous ships, if it can sail one successfully in August 2021.…

Plans week-long orbital mission, with Chicken Korma already pencilled in on the menu India’s space program will test a vehicle it expects will soon carry a crew into space in December 2021.…

Nicholas Faber joins accomplice Michael Fish in admitting he raided university portal for sensitive info A college graduate has admitted hacking into the email and online accounts of female students, stealing their nude photos and videos, and trading them with others.…

Biden-era Dept of Justice forced to make call after UK judge blocks on mental health grounds The US Dept of Justice will continue pushing for the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday.…

Fawbush and Miller supers will crank away at weather-forecasting models HPE has built two supercomputers focused on weather forecasting for the US Air Force that, when combined, are said to be six times more powerful than their predecessor.…

Also: NASA to use SpaceX's Falcon Heavy for the Lunar Gateway while eyeing another seat in a Soyuz In Brief Typical. You wait years for missions to Mars and then a whole bunch come along at once. Less than a day after the Emirates Mars Mission dropped into Martian orbit, China's Tianwen-1 has followed suit and NASA will be arriving shortly.…

Security researcher finds it's easy to confuse build systems with malicious versions of private software libraries Bug hunter Alex Birsan last year managed to compromise the software supply chain of 35 companies by exploiting packaging mechanisms used by JavaScript, Python, and Ruby developers.…

And the cost of hitching their HR and finance system to the cloud? $52.5m over half a decade The good people of Iowa can breathe a sigh of relief as their state government has found a more conventional way of funding a new Workday-based HR and finance project than raiding coronavirus federal aid funds.…

National Crime Agency nabbed network that stole money, Bitcoin, personal data Brit cops have cuffed eight men in England and Scotland amid a probe into SIM-swapping attacks on high-profile US targets – including sports stars, musicians, and "influencers" – that had money and personal data stolen.…

New dependencies will rely on runtime from March The death march of legacy Edge and Internet Explorer 11 continued today with an addition to the Microsoft 365 roadmap warning that new features would likely rely on WebView2.…

And more gaffes from the world of lockdown videoconferencing Yes, we're still in the thick of a pandemic. No, we haven't seen anyone outside our immediate family for months. Yes, we're working from home. Bit boring, isn't it?…

54k staffers can WFH permanently, come in 1-3 days a week for meetings - or if they must - use vendor's 'immersive workspaces' Global CRM SaaS pusher Salesforce has told its staff and the wider world that the 9-to-5 workday is dead.…

'I don't have the energy to be a server admin for something that's held together with scotch tape and prayers' The Simple DirectMedia Library (SDL) project is moving development to GitHub today despite what a core developer calls "calamitous design choices" in git, for the sake of familiarity and wide tool support.…

No downtime for major updates CloudLinux has added the Raspberry Pi to its KernelCare patching service, although only if you're running Ubuntu.…

Mike Lynch remains popular with the Leftpondians, court hears Autonomy founder Mike Lynch is part of a gang of "English thieves" who deserve to be extradited for targeting "their fraudulent guns" and "grasping claws" at "American companies and American money," a US government barrister told a London court yesterday.…

Waiting for a bus while welcoming Windows Bork!Bork!Bork! You can't beat that factory-fresh smell except, it appears, when waiting for both a bus and somebody to finish setting up Windows 10 on a rainy Scottish evening.…

Too much money wasted on on-demand pricing A report from the FinOps Foundation has found that many organisations pay more than they need for cloud services, with challenges including getting engineers to control costs, and too much use of on-demand pricing.…

Soon may the phisherman come to leave our inbox quite undone Kind old Google has published data on targeted email attacks and dispensed advice to help users separate friend from foe.…

Dodging lock-in good for the career as well as the soul Getting skilled up in open source could be a better career bet than focusing on a specific vendor's cloud technology.…

Reckons the world is going to re-wire and revisit security Cisco has reported a small downwards revenue wobble, but reckons there are better days ahead because the post-COVID world will need more networks.…

Orbital mechanics leads to rush hour The United Arab Emirates space agency successfully maneuvered a spacecraft into Martian orbit on Tuesday, marking the country’s first foray into interplanetary exploration.…

MEP driving EU’s Digital Services Act backs down under cash dangle plan Australia’s plan to make Facebook and Google pay for links to news content have found a toehold in the European Union.…

United Nations sanctions made silly by sloppy security North Korean attacks on crypto exchanges reportedly netted an estimated $316m in cryptocurrency in 2019 and 2020, according to a report by Japan’s Nikkei.…

Nissan, Honda latest to complain that semiconductor drought has put the brakes on manufacturing Nissan and Honda have both said semiconductor shortages will impact their sales this year.…

Converged infrastructure with an off-ramp from AIX to Red Hat OpenShift and all things cloud-native IBM has quietly announced its “Power Private Cloud Rack solution,” a converged infrastructure product that offers an off-ramp from AIX and a path into the wonderful world of cloud-native applications.…

FCC says it will defend Pai-era decision to cut off mega-corp from American business Huawei is appealing against a decision by America’s comms watchdog to designate the Chinese giant a “national security threat."…

3GPP standards built in at core The headline feature on Qualcomm's new 5G modem, the Snapdragon X65, is speed, boasting a theoretical max download rate of 10Gbps, eclipsing its predecessor, the Snapdragon X60, by a third.…

That aside, enjoy the light load of 56 vulns in Windows and other code Patch Tuesday For its February Patch Day, Microsoft released security advisories covering 56 CVE-assigned vulnerabilities, 11 of them rated critical.…

Ren Zhengfei wants to talk to the Biden administration Semiconductor purchases are a strong indicator of how the wider hardware industry is faring. An analysis of last year's numbers from Gartner paints a rosy picture with mobile and computer vendors increasingly hungry for chips on the back of pandemic-driven device demand. There was one exception, however: Huawei.…

Call me what you will - but don't drop me more than 26 times Oracle has launched a rugged computer-filled box which users should feel comfortable dropping from a 1.2m height but no more than 26 times.…

Plus: Verdict will be delayed for High Court to pass judgment on HPE civil case The US offered to let Autonomy founder Mike Lynch out on bail if he traveled to America to face criminal charges over the $8.8bn writedown of his company after its buyout by HPE – provided he stumped up $10m as bond.…

Share price rises after no-surprises 2020 prelims announced, CEO says 3-year turnaround doing OK Investors hate surprises. There were, however, no hidden nasties in Micro Focus's preliminary financial results for fiscal 2020 outlined today as the collection of fragmented legacy software assets crossed off year one of its 36-month turnaround strategy.…

Resignation letter posted to LinkedIn accuses cloudy CRM biz of 'countless micro-aggressions and inequity' A Black former Salesforce employee has accused the global CRM software company of "countless micro-aggressions and inequity".…

Widgets tie in with promise to 'elevate people and conversations in the system surfaces' Early Android 12 screenshots leaked yesterday on XDA have revealed what looks like a major design refresh and new privacy features, though they are unofficial and we cannot guarantee their authenticity.…

Bar the doors lest you get targeted Online criminals have increasingly targeted Remote Desktop Protocol connections over the past year, according to infosec biz ESET.…

Let a thousand torts bloom Companies deploying machine-learning systems trained on subpar datasets should be legally obligated to pay damages to victims that have been harmed by the technology under tort law, a law professor has opined.…

Hackers threaten to release source and docs, but games giant isn't playing ball CD Projekt Red, the Polish developer of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, has disclosed a major security incident in which several company systems were encrypted and confidential data stolen.…

99.5% were from before 2011 – so that's OK Data lost because of a scripting error introduced to the UK's Police National Computer (PNC) in November will take another 12 weeks to recover, according to a statement in Parliament.…

Overwhelming majority stand up to down tools, BT has days to meet with Communication Workers Union The clock is ticking for BT top brass to meet with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) after repayment project engineers (RPE) in the Openreach division voted for industrial action over a new grading structure.…

Going shopping? Hope your pockets are deep enough Bork!Bork!Bork! The enmity between Microsoft and Oracle is the stuff of legend, but it appears The Beast of Redmond may have had the last laugh, at least over its namesake.…

Campaign to oust him and 'carpetbagger' board picks up speed CEO of .uk registry operator Nominet has pleaded with the organisation’s members to hear him out before they consider backing a campaign to fire both him and other non-elected members of the board.…

Do you really think your safe copies aren’t top of the cyber-crims' hit list? Webcast Ransomware is one of the most insidious forms of cyber-attack, not least because it presents you with a range of highly unpleasant options.…