The Register

DoJ, ATF target MCDs, but what about the printers? The US Department of Justice is turning to the 3D printing industry to help combat the scourge of machine gun conversion devices (MCDs) used by criminals to turn semi-automatic firearms into deadly bullet sprayers....

It promised vanishing messages, but now 'it's privacy theater' Video A popular privacy feature in WhatsApp is "completely broken and can be trivially bypassed," according to developers at cryptowallet startup Zengo....

Setting the stage for pending AI feature while doubling down on health tech Apple just introduced its iPhone 16 line, Watch Series 10, and assorted AirPods, and also set formal release dates next week for its iOS 18 and watchOS 11 software....

The kind of thing the big names should be doing instead of working with proprietary vendors OneFileLinux is a very different sort of distro that runs entirely from your UEFI system partition, without a bootable USB key or any other partitions on the disk....

US alarmed by heightened Kremlin naval activity worldwide Russia's naval activity near undersea cables is reportedly drawing the scrutiny of US officials, further sparking concerns that the Kremlin may be plotting to "sabotage" underwater infrastructure via a secretive, dedicated military unit called the General Staff Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI)....

Challenges span energy efficiency, memory, programmability, and national security The US Department of Energy has launched a $23 million program aimed at overcoming a litany of supercomputing performance bottlenecks....

But then again is LiDAR even on the radar in 2024? Mobileye is axing its light detection and ranging (LiDAR) research team, noting the tech has fallen out of favor in the automated driver assist space though to the keen observer it might be looking for any way to save money....

Nvidia, Equinix clearly making a killing over costs, confusion, and cold feet Enterprises are still struggling with the business case for generative AI projects more than a year after the craze started, and we may have to wait until the end of 2025 to see if they're seen through to completion....

'Insider wrongdoing' to blame for the breach Avis Rent A Car System has alerted 299,006 customers across multiple US states that their personal information was stolen in an August data breach....

Criminals with plenty of time on their hands may now have credit card details Around 1.7 million people will receive a letter from Florida-based Slim CD, if they haven't already, after the company detected an intrusion dating back nearly a year....

Salsa's final act: Reminding us it was the humans all along The European Space Agency (ESA) has bid farewell to the Cluster II spacecraft with a final set of commands to show that engineers are indeed human....

Japanese government has also earmarked $6.4B for the project Japanese chip upstart Rapidus has only worked on its 2nm wafer fab in Hokkaido for a year, yet the company is reportedly already seeking 100 billion ($699 million) in additional funding for the project....

The latest of many attempts to stifle perceived threats to Putin's regime A pro-democracy NGO in Russia says it looks like the Kremlin-linked COLDRIVER group was behind last month's hack-and-leak job that saw files and inboxes dumped online....

Too many IT modernization projects? Not enough budget? Something will have to give Arun Ulag, Microsoft corporate vice president for Azure Data, reckons that, in a world of constrained or finite IT budgets, something will have to give if new projects are to thrive....

Mars adventure postponed to 2025. Perhaps NASA has decided the two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft planned to be launched on the maiden flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will not be fueled and will instead take a ride to Mars next year. Maybe....

22.04 to 24.04 upgrade temporarily withdrawn, but will be back Ubuntu 24.04.1 is still available, but for now you can't update to it from Jammy Jellyfish until a bug is sorted. To compensate, there are some fun goodies coming in 24.10....

Nation's dominant broadband plumber keen to fend off any efforts to restrict it Openreach wants Reg readers to know that the UK's fixed telecoms market is coming along just fine, and is imploring regulators to not spoil it by, for example, listening to what competitors say....

CFO says company hasn't been sued by any customers - yet CrowdStrike has yet to face a lawsuit over July's global IT meltdown, according to CFO Burt Podbere....

From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever built. Not even a kernel Opinion The Rusting of Linux proceeds apace. Of course there are problems, some technical, some very human. Last week saw one of the leading Rusties sign off from the project, quoting "non-technical" barriers to progress. That'll be people, then....

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Who, Me? The Register does not particularly like Mondays, but rather than shoot the whole day down we prefer to brighten it with a fresh instalment of Who, Me? in which Reg readers share tales of times the silicon chips inside their heads got switched to overload....

Spook bosses use first-ever joint article to bemoan how Russia and China use tech to mess with the world CIA director Bill Burns and UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) chief Richard Moore have for the first time penned a joint opinion piece in which the two spookmasters reveal their agencies have adopted generative AI....

Do try this one at home, using a chicken breast and a recipe Scientists have discovered a common food colorant has a remarkable property - making the skin of live mice transparent, so the organs beneath become visible....

Preventing that is doable, but managing what happens when AI upsets people is hard Organizations adopting AI need to learn how to manage the emotional and monetary costs the tech creates, while also worrying about capturing productivity benefits, according to analyst firm Gartner....

Plus: Trump family X accounts hijacked to promote crypto scam; Fog ransomware spreads; Hijacked PyPI packages; and more Infosec in brief After activating its chameleon field and going to ground following press attention earlier this year, the dangerous Predator commercial spyware kit is back - with upgrades....

Plus: 550MW more DCs for India; Australia poised to use decryption powers; Indonesia creates cyber warfare unit Asia In Brief Huawei has revealed an image of the Mate XT, the world's first tri-folding smartphone - and that was apparently enough to spark over a million orders for the device....

GPU giant accused of colluding with Microsoft, RPX to sideline startup Nvidia is embroiled in an antitrust'n'patent lawsuit, which alleges the GPU giant colluded with Microsoft and the intellectual property risk management firm RPX to rip off the data processing unit (DPU) developer Xockets' designs....

Robotaxis, low pay may be end of the road for app cabbies in San Francisco Feature The Uber driver who picked me up the other day doesn't think the ride-sharing app has much of a future in San Francisco....

What now for these pod people? Boeing's Calamity Capsule has returned to Earth, bringing to an end a test mission that did not go entirely according to plan. Not least because the Starliner's crew had to stay behind aboard the International Space Station....

White House floats round two of regulations Feature It sounds like the start of a bad joke: Digital trespassers from China, Russia, and Iran break into US water systems....

Good news for rabbits, maybe great news soon for humans? An international team of scientists has developed a drug delivery system that could one day treat human brain aneurysms in a way without the need for traditional surgery....

Some brick devices they'd rather not support, kill apps that drive functions, or add post-sale subscriptions Consumer and digital rights activists are calling on the US Federal Trade Commission to stop device-makers using software to reduce product functionality, bricking unloved kit, or adding surprise fees post-purchase....

Not so much when trying to convert coding veterans Google recently rewrote the firmware for protected virtual machines in its Android Virtualization Framework using the Rust programming language and wants you to do the same, assuming you deal with firmware....

Surely this duty will be executed without bias toward NHTSA, FAA, DOJ, NLRB If Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the election in November, he plans to create a "government efficiency commission" based on ideas from Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk, who will also lead the body....

The 'security issue' was caused by a 9.8-rated Magento flaw Adobe patched back in June Bad news for anyone who purchased a Cisco hoodie earlier this month: Suspected Russia-based attackers injected data-stealing JavaScript into the networking giant's online store selling Cisco-branded merch....

Tech demo paves way to producing spare parts and tools during missions The European Space Agency (ESA) has shown off the first 3D metal part printed on the International Space Station (ISS)....

Chipzilla hasn't collapsed yet but the vultures are circling Qualcomm reportedly aims to cash in on Intel's financial woes by stripping the ailing chipmaker of parts....

Photolithography giant assures customers it is under no new restrictions ASML has moved to assure customers and investors that it is subject to no new restrictions following an announcement that expands the Netherlands government's own role in export control measures....

Acquisition of SaaS backup vendor ends mega-merger moratorium Having adopted Own Company's technology, Salesforce has decided to buy the SaaS data protection and data management outfit for $1.9 billion in cash....

Provisional findings echo worries in the US and EC about the search giant's dominance The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has administered a provisional rap over Google's knuckles for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the advertising technology marketplace....

Chatterbox Labs CEO claims Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office unfairly cancelled a contract then accused him of blackmail In-depth Chatterbox Lab CEO Danny Coleman alleges that after three and a half years of uncompensated work to provide the US Defense Department with tools for "Responsible AI," he found himself accused of trying to blackmail the government....

Makes cabling a bit less onerous, says WaveCore maker Airvine Scientific has a product that could make life easier for IT staff. WaveCore is designed to beam a network signal through thick concrete walls, eliminating the need to drill holes or route your cabling via a circuitous course....

Carbon capture outfits could be making up to $45B, say analysts The datacenter industry is set to emit 2.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide between now and the end of the decade, three times more than if generative AI had not been developed....

Foundry faces a reckoning Comment Intel's fledgling foundry business is in trouble. The division is bleeding billions each quarter and now the chipmaker has revealed that it won't even manufacture parts on its own long-awaited 20A node....

Diamond-based accelerators could help smash science problems Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is working with a company called Quantum Brilliance on the integration of quantum systems and high-performance computing (HPC) to tackle scientific concerns....

When maintenance windows are hard to open, a little lubrication helps On Call The Register understands consuming alcohol is quite a popular way to wind down from the working week, but each Friday we get the party started early with a new and sober instalment of On Call, the reader contributed column in which you share stories about the emotional hangovers you've earned delivering tech support....

Oh, great: another tech billionaire owns a media company - although his son probably runs the show Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison has been revealed as holding the controlling interest in US media giant Paramount Global....

Who needs fuel - or even engines - when you could use the sun to push a spacecraft along? NASA has announced its experimental ACS3 solar-sailing spacecraft is working as expected, after it was spotted tumbling in the night sky....

CEO says market for non-AI silicon has bottomed out Broadcom's turnaround plan for VMware appears to be working, as the silicon-and-software-slinger reported 47 percent year on year revenue growth - but also posted a loss....

Datacenters are the lifeline for its $30B ML-fueled boom AI has made GPUs one of the hottest commodities on the planet, driving more than $30 billion in revenues for Nvidia in Q2 alone. But, without datacenters, the chip powerhouse and its customers have nowhere to put all that tech....

Alloys make the list too, as allies try to ensure foes can't weaponise tech The US has tightened export controls on quantum computing and semiconductor technology to address national defense and foreign policy concerns posed by foes including China, Iran, and Russia....