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ALSO: SEC admits to X account negligence; New macOS malware family appears; and some critical vulns Infosec in brief Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) held its first-ever automotive-focused Pwn2Own event in Tokyo last week, and awarded over $1.3 million to the discoverers of 49 vehicle-related zero day vulnerabilities....

ALSO: Samsung turns to Baidu for Galaxy AI in China; Terraform Labs files for bankruptcy; India's supercomputing ambitions Asia In Brief Indian infosec firm CloudSEK last week claimed it found records describing 750 million Indian mobile network subscribers on the dark web, with two crime gangs offering the trove of data for just $3,000....

Suppliers know they can get away with less and the cloud means alternatives are less likely to emerge Comment HPE's decision to acquire Juniper is bad news for enterprise IT, as yet another example of consolidation in a field that already offers fewer, and less palatable, competitive choices in a shrinking market....

Both stable and rolling releases, Pi versions, and some very unusual customizations SparkyLinux is a lightweight distro based on Debian, but it offers some choices that few if any others do....

Brain research could help find the right mix between handwriting and new technologies, researchers claim Scientists claim to have found evidence that handwriting promotes learning more than typing on keyboards....

Computer science teachers, software experts share their advice on ML assistants Feature Learning how to program is perhaps now easier than ever with AI, though the tools that suggest or generate source code for you have to be used wisely....

It takes more than open source, it takes open standards and consensus Opinion Today, thanks to Android and ChromeOS, Linux is an important end-user operating system. But, before Linux, there were important Unix desktops, although most of them never made it....

Crunchy, tasty, coconut flavoured... and hopefully thicker than a few nanometers TSMC is known for making advanced semiconductors, but it seems the company is now driving up the price of chips made with tastier materials than traditional silicon....

Despite US chemistry boffin claiming it improves the taste, we respectfully disagree Poll It's well established that the British are an eccentric people. Among their national obsessions is drinking tea - they consider themselves experts - and one way to trigger the entire United Kingdom is to fuck with the formula....

Don't pack your swimming costumes as it could be more of a sauna planet Not to be outdone by the younger, hipper equipment in NASA's arsenal, the Hubble Space Telescope is still proving its worth, spotting evidence of water vapor in the smallest-ever exoplanet known to us....

At least web competition will finally be allowed Analysis Apple co-founder Steve Jobs described the computer as a bicycle for the mind. But he failed to let that metaphor shape his greatest achievement, the iPhone, which has become a shackle for the soul....

Network rollback fails to resolve issue in Americas as Redmond scrambles to optimize its way out of the problem Corporate communications ground to a halt for many Office 365 subscribers around the world on Friday after a network outage left Microsoft Teams unresponsive for them for several hours....

Step one, actually turn on MFA Microsoft, a week after disclosing that Kremlin-backed spies broke into its network and stole internal emails and files from its executives and staff, has now confirmed the compromised corporate account used in the genesis of the heist didn't even have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled....

Honestly, it sounds like a fun time The FBI plans to use Amazon's controversial Rekognition cloud service "to extract information and insights from lawfully acquired images and videos," according to US Justice Department documents....

Microsoft and Salesforce the latest to toss more folks onto industry's employment bonfire More than 20,000 people working in tech lost their job in January, continuing the 2023 trend when 250,000+ were ditched after companies hired heavily in the pandemic and couldn't justify headcount amid slowing customer spending....

And software makers seem to be OK with this, apparently Comment There's a line in the latest plea from CISA - the US government's cybersecurity agency - to software developers to do a better job of writing secure code that may make you spit out your coffee....

If you could just not harvest our info unlawfully and without a warrant, that would be great US Senator Ron Wyden on Thursday asked US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to stop US intelligence agencies from purchasing Americans' unlawfully collected personal data from data brokers....

We chat to AI expert Ilia Shumailov about the pitfalls of using machines to train machines Feature What happens to machine learning models when they feed on themselves, when the data they ingest comes more and more from other generative models rather than human authors?...

Beta Channel Insiders can return to retail Windows 11 23H2 with click of a toggle Liberation beckons for Microsoft's Beta Channel Windows Insiders thanks to an optional installation of Windows 11 23H2 for users who wish to opt out....

Breach filings show Reddit post led to the discovery rather than any sophisticated cyber defenses Biotech and DNA-collection biz 23andMe, the one that blamed its own customers for the October mega-breach, just admitted it failed to detect any malicious activity for the entire five months attackers were breaking into user accounts....

Startups hoping to compete in the industry face an uphill battle Panel The dominance of big tech in cloud computing, coupled with a shortage of chips, is preventing smaller AI software and hardware startups from competing fairly, according to panelists at the FTC Tech Summit this week....

Until we can hook schadenfreude directly into our veins, this will have to do Kettle What was your favorite tech failure this week? You may well agree with our vultures who for this latest Kettle episode selected theirs to talk about....

Pat's gonna need to sell a lotta AI PCs if he wants to make a profit this quarter Intel execs this week painted a grim picture of early 2024, forecasting steep declines ahead for the company's core businesses....

Union claims corporate greed behind alliance, firms claim it is about helping customers The UK's competition watchdog is today kicking off Phase 1 of its probe into proposed merger between Vodafone and Three's UK businesses to determine any repercussions the tie-up could have for rivals or customers....

Cosmetics brand goes from Jackson Pollocking your bathwater to cleaning up serious a digital mess The Akira ransomware gang is claiming responsiblity for the "cybersecurity incident" at British bath bomb merchant....

In Memoriam for plucky robot that brushed off dead sensors and dust like they were nothing After 72 flights and three years, NASA has retired Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter that became the first aircraft operated outside the Earth's atmosphere....

Clean sweep across broadband, landline, and pay TV It may be only a few years since the two were combined, but Virgin Media O2 is topping UK comms regulator Ofcom's customer complaints chart....

When a rack sits on a metal plate, that's so not an invitation to move it On Call The Register loves standards - we have our very own Standards Bureau. Another standard we observe rigorously is that each Friday morning brings a new instalment of On Call, the weekly reader-contributed tale of tech support incidents that ripped up the rule book....

Mission a 'minimum' success because rovers deployed successfully The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has transmitted images of the Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (SLIM) to Earth....

Work in progress, approach with caution Google has added a fresh round of features to Project IDX, its cloud-based development environment....

Most of the crew still at large A former Trickbot developer has been sent down for five years and four months for his role in infecting American hospitals and businesses with ransomware and other malware, costing victims tens of millions of dollars in losses....

That's the way the Cook, he crumbles Apple has given up its fight against being designated a gatekeeper under Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), meaning the iMaker will give people in the European Union greater choice over their browser engines and application store on iOS....

Khaaaaaaan! Khaaaaaaaaaaan! Updated The FTC today stuck a probe into five Big Tech players about their generative AI investments and partnerships....

PC unsupported in Windows 11? Start 2024 with a new OS Three of the most highly regarded Linux distros around have put out new releases....

Nothing like an informal talking shop dressed up as formal transatlantic cooperation The next meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) will take place in Washington DC next week to discuss mutual approaches to trade issues and tech challenges, such as climate change and China....

'This was a 101 how not to do a conference call,' says Wall St expert When Elon Musk says Tesla had a "great year," it's best to read between the lines - especially after such a disastrous quarterly earnings call....

Cheerio to cheeky Chardonnay chancers Good news for older boozehounds - the UK government plans to inject age estimation AI into supermarket alcohol sales....

Beats analyst estimates, talks up genAI and yet share price wobbles briefly ServiceNow booked a 20 percent leap in subscriptions for the final three months of 2023, causing it to hike financial forecasts for this year - but Wall Street seemingly wasn't as impressed the company maybe expected....

Last year it was over France. This year it was over Germany. Where will the rocks strike next? A NASA system has accurately predicted where and when an asteroid entered the Earth's atmosphere....

That's not to say Redmond hasn't had significant Windows of misfortune Microsoft has crossed the $3 trillion valuation threshold thanks in no small part to investors buying into the company's AI vision....

Ericsson straps in for rough year, while Nokia bets on recovery in second half Telecom giants Nokia and Ericsson both saw sales drop for the final quarter of 2023, blaming tough economic conditions for weak network operator spending. While Ericsson expects another tough year ahead, Nokia is banking on things picking up later this year....

Securities lender processes trillions of dollars worth of Wall Street transactions every day US securities lender EquiLend has pulled a number of its systems offline after a security "incident" in which an attacker gained "unauthorized access"....

Real estate consolidation, 'productivity initiatives' mean Big Blue is upping annual savings target to $3B IBM is recasting its ambitions for annual run rate cost savings by upping the target by another $1 billion, and will pull multiple levers to get there - including completion of the Weather Company's asset and job cuts....

Though that might be the least of their worries, according to this report Despite the specter of IT layoffs, top talent has no difficulty switching employers, according to new research by integrator Advania....

eVTOL to use existing aerodrome infrastructure The UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is looking at design proposals for vertiports at existing aerodromes as the UK begins deliberation over the potential arrival of air taxis....

Turns out it's pretty easy to make the model jump its own guardrails Criminals are getting increasingly adept at crafting malicious AI prompts to get data out of ChatGPT, according to Kaspersky, which spotted 249 of these being offered for sale online during 2023....

Still, up to 180,000 units sold under pre-order and China gray market prepping locals The old joke among less experienced tech product reviewers is that writing the review starts with opening the box. In the case of Apple's Vision Pro, critics are finding that the, er, box lacks the aestethics that a buyer might expect given the hefty price tag....

Plus a big change for Linux folks - native .deb packages The latest Firefox has a raft of modest but desirable improvements for everyone, and a more significant change, external to the app itself, that will be helpful for most Linux users....

Tough luck non-Americans, the cops can still see your footage Surveillance doorbell maker Amazon Ring on Wednesday announced it is discontinuing an option that allowed law enforcement agencies to request video footage without a warrant....

Firefox maker about five years too late Mozilla has decided to be more vocal about the ways in which Apple, Google, and Microsoft set technical requirements that have hindered development of its Firefox web browser, and therefore harmed competition....