The Register

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.…

Plus: Bye-bye Xamarin Forms, hello Multi-Platform App UI, for when Universal is not universal enough Build As its virtual Build conference gets underway, Microsoft has unveiled Project Reunion, described as "our vision for unifying and evolving the Windows developer platform to make it easier to build great apps that work across all the Windows 10 versions."…

Lawsuits filed after alarm biz admits worker snooped on victims A technician at ADT remotely accessed hundreds of customers' CCTV cameras to spy on people in their own homes, the burglar-alarm biz has admitted.…

We tested it and found a naval officer's partner and kids - they're not kidding A beer and pub-rating app built off the back of Foursquare’s location-tracking API poses a risk to the security of military and intelligence personnel, according to legendary OSINT website Bellingcat.…

Hopes to lure business types to shiny platform Open-source database support and distribution biz Percona has flung out new versions of MongoDB and Postgres and a managed database service as it looks to win over more enterprise folk.…

Chorus of 'what about my app' protests follow executive intervention Google's senior veep for Android, Chrome OS and Play Store, Hiroshi Lockheimer, has apologised for suspending the popular Podcast Addict app, but he might not have expected the outpouring of frustration from other developers with their own tales to tell.…

Revoke an app's access with a tap The latest version of Xiaomi's Android fork – MIUI 12, released today – introduces several features including new permissions notifications, and an ultra-battery-saver mode designed to stretch out a phone's standby time for as long as possible.…

Contributions anonymous, and we’ll give you a full report when it’s done Reader survey Ever since Larry Ellison stepped off his houseboat in the late 1970s, relational databases have underpinned a huge amount of what made business IT a genuine force for good.…

Fun goodies for developers... for everyone else, well, we hope you like Pinterest Build Four months after Microsoft launched a renovated version of its Edge browser - sitting atop the open-source Chromium project - the Windows goliath has honed Edge further, just in time for its Build 2020 developer conference.…

Now those are some X-ray specs OnePlus has announced plans to disable the colour filter camera on its latest OnePlus 8 Pro flagship blower after it emerged the device could see through plastics and clothes under certain conditions.…

Windows Subsystem for Linux to gain out-of-the-box support for GUI apps, GPU chippery Build Microsoft's Build 2020 appears to mark the long-awaited Year Of Linux on the Desktop thanks to incoming Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) improvements, including GUI support.…

That'll endear it to the government, definitely Imperial College London, currently in the headlines for its modelling of the spread of COVID-19 across the UK, has signed a five-year collaboration deal with controversial Chinese tech outfit Huawei.…

Also: 'Twas the night before Buildmas Roundup Welcome to another roundup of the latest Micros~1 news, featuring Office 365 tweaks, acquisitions and... a poem.…

Xilinx touts 'industry-first' 20nm FPGA for infinity and beyond Xilinx today launched what it claims is the world's first space-grade 20nm FPGA designed to run tiny machine-learning models within satellites and spacecraft, as well as other tasks.…

All together now: The hackers were 'highly sophisticated' Updated Budget British airline Easyjet has been hacked, it has told the stock markets, admitting nine million people's details were accessed and more than 2,000 customers' credit card details stolen.…

Promises of transparency about handling of citizens' health data haven't been fulfilled – campaigners A broad-based campaign group has written to UK health secretary Matt Hancock calling for greater openness in the government's embrace of private-sector tech companies contracted to provide a data store and dashboards as part of the NHS response to the COVID-19 outbreak.…

See, it's not just users getting shafted AT&T tracks its sales reps to make sure they keep to its schedule and then charges them for doing so, claims one of its "in-home experts" Daniel Gunther.…

How many defects has it found? Never mind that, check out the architecture flow chart Altran – in association with Microsoft – has pushed out an open source project to find code defects via AI whenever you commit code.…

More than 3,500 folks' payment info quietly stolen A card-skimming Magecart malware infection lingered on a British outdoor clothing retailer's website without detection for nearly eight months despite regular security scans.…

It was the best of weather, it was the worst of weather Roundup Atlas slipped a day, SpaceX slipped by more and ESA enjoyed some delay-based rover tinkering as we look back at the successful culmination – and the foiling – of great expectations in rocketry over the past few days.…

Apparently Welsh was not invented by Tolkien Bork!Bork!Bork! We go back to the roots of bork today with a good, old-fashioned Blue Screen of Death, courtesy of Transport for Wales.…

It built a perfectly good analytics cloud yet has added a Microsoft spreadsheet plugin because that’s what punters want How unkillable is Microsoft Excel?…

Media Player add-on lets you and your mates watch shows in sync The BBC has launched a new service that will let users watch or listen to its programmes over the internet in the company of friends and family.…

Scale with the king of hyperscalers... until the silicon runs out, that is The cloud continued to totter this month, and it was Google's turn to run into resource droughts – this time, virtual machine instances with GPUs.…

UK and Oz registries recorded mini-booms for new names but also an overall domain dip New domain name registrations spiked in the UK and Australia in April.…

Real instructors, flexible options, hands-on virtual environments Promo The SANS Institute continues its mission to teach cybersecurity skills during the coronavirus lockdown: it now offers a slew of courses that feature live interaction with world-class instructors that go hand in hand with the many certifications from GIAC, which has also moved its offering online with proctored exams available from the end of May.…

Stuck for compute power to craft digital funbucks? Go where the big beasts slumber A British supercomputer hacked last week was among a group of big beasts targeted around the world to mine cryptocurrency, it has emerged.…

Malware-led intrusions falling out of fashion, too Outside hackers were to blame for most data thefts last year, while in-house drama contributed to only a fifth of total computer security incidents, Verizon reckons.…

Storage and networking recover from overnight brownout, compute still in trouble after 12 hours The Central India region of Microsoft’s Azure cloud is in trouble.…

State program funds targeted by crooks, Secret Service tells El Reg With US unemployment threatening to reach its highest level since the Great Depression, hackers around the globe are using stolen personal information to file fraudulent benefits claims and steal millions of dollars destined for jobless Americans.…

In unusual turn of events, Ajit Pai warns he’ll do his job unless stopped The head of America's communications regulator has asked Congress to intervene to stop him from auctioning off radio spectrum for billions of dollars, warning that if they don’t change the law, he’ll be obliged to do his job.…

What did happen to the $125 everyone was promised? Equifax has finally agreed to pay compensation for the massive security breach it suffered in 2017 that led to the theft of at least 146 million people's personal info.…

Feds gain access to military base shooter's mobes using outside tools The US Department of Justice is once again taking Apple to task for not cooperating with device decryption requests, even after it announced that it had retrieved information from a pair of iPhones without Cupertino's help.…

Known and yet still unfixed flaws lurk in proprietary device-linking tech Apple's proprietary approach to securing Bluetooth peripherals, known as MagicPairing, has some benefits, but not magical enough to make vulnerabilities vanish.…

That's 6,700 employees let go this month – so far – with doubt hanging over AI projects Uber has let another 3,000 people go after axing 3,700 earlier this month amid the coronavirus pandemic. That's about 30 per cent of its 22,000-strong workforce slashed in a month.…

Only in 'extremely rare circumstances.' So that's OK Microsoft had to warn a subset of Office 365 administrators over the weekend that their organisation might have inadvertently featured in an outsider's internal search results.…

Meanwhile, Pushbullet pushes back after Chrome extension pulled Popular Android app Podcast Addict has been suspended from the Google Play Store, apparently for mentioning COVID-19.…

Wide-ranging powers come into force in June The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will soon acquire new EU-derived powers allowing it to seize control of rogue traders' eBay and Amazon accounts, and even their entire websites, if it thinks "consumer interests" might be being harmed.…

Spending watchdog says UK health service lacks oversight, can't trace responsibilities The UK government is failing to learn lessons from previous NHS IT disasters, including the £9.8bn National Programme for IT (NPfIT) fiasco, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.…

Is French policy the controversial company's Achilles' heel, though? Huawei's rotating chairman has admitted to the world's media that his organisation has been "impacted" by a year of US sanctions against it – and he's quite unhappy with France, too.…

Less glue, but the silicon remains firmly soldered in place No sooner had Microsoft pushed the Surface Go 2 out the door, torque screw terror iFixit tore it apart to see how it measured up to the appalling repairability of its predecessor.…

Who would have thought the G in G Cloud stood for Gangster? Exclusive The Cabinet Office has confirmed that scammers and/or jokers broke into the UK government's Digital Marketplace to promote a round-the-clock "bespoke" fraudulent email service that preys on "gullible consumers".…

Plus: Zuck wants machines to spot bad memes on Facebook Roundup The world of artificial intelligence keeps on turning: here's a summary of what's been going down.…