The Register

WoOoO! Log me iiiin... Press CTRL-ALT-DELEeEeTE Bork!Bork!Bork! It is said that we can never truly escape our past. And there are few companies where this is truer than Clippyzilla itself, Microsoft. Behold a relic of Windows supposedly gone still hanging on in the fine Yorkshire town of Selby.…

Remember how established carrier vendors were going to clean up after Huawei bans? Not so much, maybe ... Samsung Electronics has won a $6.6bn contract to supply 5G infrastructure to Verizon in the US, beating out more established and traditional telco suppliers Nokia and Ericsson.…

Idle hands are SETI's workshop Who, Me? Monday is upon us and International Bacon Day is but a fleeting memory. Join us, pork lovers and swervers alike, in welcoming the week with another entry in The Register's Who, Me? feature.…

And it might just have been a spaceplane to rival the USA’s X-37 China’s space program has launched and landed an experimental and re-usable spacecraft and by doing so may have signalled it can match the capabilities of a secretive US strategic asset.…

Sealed with an XSS: Flaw in Go lang library could cause app issues In Brief A Colorado man will spend more than a decade behind bars for trying to settle a few arguments, albeit on an online souk selling highly illegal stuff.…

Retro-Mario brought to life for a few short months Nintendo has revived its first mobile device, the crap-tacular Game & Watch.…

SUSE chap wants Linux and classic AmigaOS to coexist peacefully The Amiga Fast File System (AFFS) is making a minor comeback in the new version of the Linux kernel.…

Company reacts with 'complete shock and perplexity' and says it's a law-abiding citizen The United States is contemplating a Huawei-style ban on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China's largest chipmaker.…

We'll help you retrain data protection teams for IaaS and SaaS life Webcast Remote working really does look like it’s going to be the new normal, either by the average worker continuing to stay away from the office in the mid-term or, perhaps more interestingly, because many organisations have now switched to understanding the benefits of dispersed and remote workers as a viable option for the corporate toolset.…

Plus: Man incorrectly identified as a suspect by a facial recognition software is suing, and more In brief A developer granted free access to OpenAI’s API has revealed how much the AI lab plans to charge its customers to use its largest language model.…

Hardware tinkerer makes odd finds, including an unusual on/off switch A hacker has peered into a fancy digital pregnancy stick and found it is just a glorified analogue paper test strip with a screen added, a novel form of activation, and a larger price tag.…

Tiny tilt from the probe's seisometer could map Phobos' orbit and help boffins predict when it'll crash into Mars The seismometer and magnetometer on NASA’s Martian InSight probe specifically designed to detect marsquakes have proved unexpectedly sensitive enough to respond to Martian eclipses too, scientists report.…

Disabled by default at the end of 2020, but it will linger on like a bad smell Microsoft confirmed that it plans to end support for Adobe Flash Player in its three browser variants at the end of the year, but the company intends to allow corporate customers to keep the outdated tech on life support beyond that date.…

Ripping and replacing Chinese-made gear won't be cheap The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says that performing a full replacement of all Huawei and ZTE hardware on American wireless networks will cost $1.837bn in total.…

*Offer void where banned by local law Apple has posted a Human Rights Policy in an attempt to placate shareholders and quell criticism of its handling of censorship requests.…

Data mining of code commits and chat gives hackers a cunning edge Boffins affiliated with BMW, Siemens, and two German universities have found that they can detect Linux kernel security fixes before they get released, insight that could allow miscreants to develop and deploy exploit code for which there's no defense.…

If you received Oracle founder's support, tough. There's a pandemic on Larry Ellison's generous philanthropy is as famous as his bulging $78.2bn net worth and mahogany complexion. Well, almost.…

Everyone's looking to cash in on the race to next-gen network With 5G increasingly touted as an alternative to existing fixed-line broadband connections, Taiwanese semiconductor biz MediaTek has pushed out its latest chipset for next-generation routers.…

Animated Friday fun Microsoft has dropped a beta of Expressive Pixels, a delightfully retro editor aimed at flinging animated visuals at LED displays.…

New supply chains, brand new system, and ... oh dear, it's still not ready yet As the year-end Brexit transition deadline looms, the government risks having to introduce software designed to help keep 10,000 trucks crossing the English Channel each day without testing it first, according to industry associations.…

But CEO foresees 'significant upturn' as Jesus mobe release shifts to October Broadcom is factoring in a later "significant uplift" in wireless chip sales than is seasonal due to a certain phone vendor delaying the launch of their next-gen blower – ie Apple's new iPhone isn't being released in September like it usually is.…

Handing out ThinkAgile in Microsoft, VMware and Nutanix flavours Lenovo has whipped the covers from a range of server hardware and services that targets businesses finding themselves suddenly at the sharp end of a march to remote working.…

'Most developers are highly intelligent, but also highly stupid' Hard-working but naive developers are a little known but highly dangerous soft spot in an organisation that attackers can exploit.…

Startup idea: Depressed barbershop for depressed people Depending on your personality, a trip to the hairdresser or barber can be harrowing. Like any customer-facing role, it's expected of staff to take to the job with a wink and a smile – but then comes the dreaded "small talk".…

Reassuring... Fortunately, customers will be subject to ethical review Google has teased new bot technology aimed mainly at contact centres as part of its Cloud AI week in the seemingly unending Cloud Next OnAir videofest.…

TABMAX wants to be for productivity AND family, TABMID is smaller China's TCL, in the process of reinventing itself from white-goods producer to consumer tech contender, has emitted its first two tablet computers – the TCL 10 TABMAX and TABMID.…

Vega returns to service after 2019 failure and brings AI to spaaaaace The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully demonstrated its Small Spacecraft Mission Service dispenser by slinging 53 satellites from a single rocket.…

Eudora checking for emails how often? On Windows 3.1? On Call Remember when you wanted to be contactable at all times? No, neither do we. The subject of today's OnCall, however, was the kind of aspiring departmental head who was hellbent on impressing the bosses, no matter what he broke in the process.…

And reveals half a dozen WhatsApp bugs into the bargain Facebook has published its first Vulnerability Disclosure Policy and given itself grounds to blab the existence of bugs to the world if it thinks that’s the right thing to do.…

Just not very well Video Engineers have overhauled the classic handheld 8-bit Game Boy to include solar panels on the front and an internal electromagnetic coil to generate electrical energy from button presses. Not so much batteries not included as batteries not needed.…

Will vet even outbound investments under new rules Taiwan will screen proposals by local tech companies that plan to transfer technology to China or invest in mainland businesses.…

Anyone can make infosec mistakes, but Cisco isn't anyone Comment Cisco this week launched a version of WebEx Classrooms, a version of its online collaboration suite tweaked for educational purposes and promised to enable “secure hybrid learning”.…

Nice economy you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if the World Trade Organisation got involved China has expressed its displeasure with India’s decision to ban 118 apps that originate in the Middle Kingdom.…

We should be able to outlaw unauthorized inquiry, Voatz argues Voatz, the maker of a blockchain-based mobile election voting app pilloried for poor security earlier this year, has urged the US Supreme Court not to change the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a law that critics say inhibits security research because it's overly broad.…

Eight DDoS attacks targeted networks, virtual classrooms, say officials A teenager in America has apparently admitted knocking virtual learning classes offline with a string of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.…

Sites with WP File Manager should update ASAP – exploits in the wild A critical vulnerability in a popular WordPress plugin called WP File Manager was spotted on Tuesday and was quickly patched by the plugin's developers.…

50 per cent decrease in worldwide traffic when lockdowns started Machine-learning models used to direct the journeys of Google Maps users have been retrained to adapt to changing traffic conditions during the coronavirus outbreak.…

'Fundamental right to privacy' can wait – Facebook and others are annoyed Apple has delayed a rule change that requires apps on iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14 to request permission from the user before tracking them via a unique ID number.…

Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G will first appear on the Acer Spin 7 Two years after entering the PC market, Qualcomm has updated its Snapdragon 8cx platform.…

Digital services tax? You'll be paying that on top of VAT, developers told Apple is tweaking its App Store to enable vendors to offer subscription codes. It has also informed developers that new digital service taxes will be deducted from their proceeds.…

We talk to VMware VP and Kubernetes co-founder Craig McLuckie: 'Our ambition was to disrupt' - but not just for Google SpringOne Virtual SpringOne kicked off with VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger declaring that the company's partnership with Microsoft – Azure Spring Cloud is generally available from today – has ended decades of "clawing and spitting and fighting with each other".…

Snowden, privacy campaigners cheer ruling 7 years in the making The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled [PDF] that the National Security Agency's phone-call slurping was indeed naughty, seven years after former contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the tawdry affair.…

Yes, Cupertino appealed last time. It has been 7 years now A three-judge panel in California has ruled [PDF] that Apple Store staffers should be paid for time spent waiting to undergo the iGiant's bag checks.…

With auto-punctuation and all! Plus: Emojis... and more Edge-y nagging Microsoft took pity on those who like to yell at their PCs with an improved version of Windows dictation among other cosmetic tweaks in an updated Dev Channel build.…

Cancelled contract saw outsourcing giant paying back £700k The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) has begun tendering for a £10m administration system - rebooting a project previously awarded to Capita that was cancelled when the outsourcer missed all milestones.…

Concept demo fast enough to show movies and games apparently As the world's second largest TV manufacturer, Chinese tech conglomerate TCL is best known for its displays. In that vein, it has shown off its newest e-ink technology at IFA, dubbed NXTPAPER, which promises richer colour and a refresh rate comparable to that of a smartphone.…

And if it does, chalk a win for IBM Watson at last Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are turning to machine-learning models to predict the severity of incoming hurricanes.…

The Reg talks to the experts about how to manage spend Feature Spinning up services on public clouds is dead easy, but what about staying in control of the bill?…

Meanwhile, UK languishes in 47th according to Cable.co.uk rankings The UK has slipped down the global broadband speed rankings and now sits at 47th place, according to a new report from Cable.co.uk.…

Joint investigations imagined, complete with sharing of confidential info gleaned from local probes The nations of the five eyes alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA – have started a new club that will see their respective competition agencies “share intelligence, case theories and investigative techniques to better coordinate investigations across international borders”.…