The Register

Not a particularly left field suggestion... The official definition of a planet should be updated to include an upper mass limit, so scientists can agree on whether a large newly found celestial body is either a huge planet – or a tiny failed star.…

With a special HNAP exploit just for D-Link kit Security researchers believe the author of the Satori botnet is at it again, this time attacking routers to craft a botnet dubbed "Masuta".…

Devs, check your protocol handling, patch if necessary If you've built a Windows application on Electron, check to see if it's subject to a just-announced remote code execution vulnerability.…

More functions, fewer servers - and Dell is good with this! NIC vendor Netronome and Dell have inked a deal targeting the network function virtualization market.…

French government is going large with open source file server, new tweaks will help File and print services project Samba will fix a slew of bugs that have made it hard for the project to scale in version 4.8, due in March.…

OG open-source darling gets security check-up Mozilla's Firefox has been patched to address more than 30 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities.…

Meanwhile, HomePod inches closer to actually shipping, allegedly Apple has released security patches for iOS and macOS that include, among other things, Meltdown and Spectre fixes. The new versions should be installed as soon as possible.…

Rules, rules, standards, and rules Following a warning from America's financial regulator, the European Commission and the United Nations have weighed in on the issue of crypto currencies.…

Between scrutiny, scams, fees, and hacking, digi-dosh looks less appealing Roundup Payment biz Stripe on Tuesday said it plans to phase out support for Bitcoin payments – citing declining interest among merchants and rising transactions times and fees.…

But recovery on the island still sluggish Analysis America's comms watchdog has finally started reacting to the dire situation in Puerto Rico, months after it was hit by a hurricane.…

Eavesdroppers could be able to peek in on mobile flirts A lack of security protections in Tinder's mobile app is leaving lonely hearts vulnerable to eavesdropping.…

Another 'leccie driver who didn't RTFM Another Tesla driver needs reminding that the flash motor's Autopilot mode doesn't mean you can ignore what's on the road.…

Not good enough for Apple, analyst suggests Apple globally shipped 29 million units of the eye-wateringly expensive iPhone X in the two months after it was launched in late 2017, falling short of consensus estimates from analysts.…

Storage boffins get flash and disk dancing together Research gnomes at IBM Zurich say we should take translation layers off storage devices and run many at the same time on a server to get faster IO.…

Database admin updates body art A database admin liked Brit database tools biz Redgate Software so much that he decided to become a walking billboard and get the company logo tattooed on his arm. Fast forward nine years and his world imploded. Sort of.…

Reckons GDPR will help us challenge algo-driven outcomes Algorithms should not be solely responsible for criminal sentencing, while a change in law may be required to open up public data sets involving health information.…

The bicycle's top left. I'm not an AI... you are. Stop hitting yourself RoTM Facebook has brought us one step closer to a Skynet future made a commitment to computer vision boffinry by open-sourcing its codebase for object detection, Detectron.…

One namespace to rule them all Cloudian's latest version of its object storage software can run native inside AWS, Google and Azure clouds, enabling a single object store namespace across the on-premises and major public cloud worlds.…

Capacity max same with 32- to 64-layer 3D NAND transition Micron is looking to boost its high fidelity cred. The vendor has refreshed its three-model 5100 SATA SSD with a two-variant 5200, increasing reliability from two million to three million hours mean time before failure (MTBF).…

Just not as sexy as engineering The number of youngsters taking up ICT apprenticeships has fallen by nearly 20 per cent over the last five years, according to the UK's Education and Skills Funding Agency.…

Could Nutanix be gearing up for an acquisition? Acquisition hints at Nutanix, go-to-market changes at Zerto, subscription pricing intro at Violin Systems, new SW release at Delphix – yep, it's another storage roundup.…

Moneymen always ready to say: Icahn tell you what you're doing wrong Activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deacon are linking arms to force Xerox to “explore strategic alternatives” for the business and squeeze out the “old guard” manning the fort should they resist change.…

Moneymen always ready to say: Icahn tell you what you're doing wrong Activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deacon are linking arms to force Xerox to “explore strategic alternatives” for the business and squeeze out the “old guard” manning the fort should they resist change.…

Deal would hand Murdoch too much power – provisional ruling Fox's proposed £11.7bn take over of Sky has been deemed not to be in the public interest, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally ruled today.…

Unsure on-shore: When it comes to staff ratio, you hit it then quit it... right? Right? IBM's Global Technology Services says it is finally edging closer to a proposed target to base 60 per cent of the workforce in offshore locations, one fifth in nearshore and another fifth onshore.…

Is it a game-changer? Definitely What exactly is "serverless"? Like many popular technology terms, the exact definition of serverless is increasingly fluid. Also like many popular technology terms, the fact that the term means different things to different people doesn't sit well in some quarters.…

Exec tells us they're knocking 14% off the price by 2020 Lockheed Martin aims to knock 14 per cent off the cost of Britain's F-35B fighter jets over the next couple of years, the firm's director of business development told The Register.…

Ancient DC-8 will try to figure out if biofuel’s a sick burn for contrails. NOT chemtrails, OK? NASA has started sniffing jet fuel as part of joint experiment with the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, DLR).…

OneDrive for Business stretches its restoration envelope Microsoft's OneDrive for Business now offers to recover files deleted a month in the past.…

Let us tell you, reply two boffins A new model has traced the origins of high-energy neutrinos, cosmic rays, and gamma rays to powerful jets billowing around supermassive black holes.…

FB VR devs invite you to flick the screen rate Video effects designers who work with C++ code have a new unit of time to work with called a "flick."…

Integral bumps microSD to 512 GB, leaving SanDisk's 400GB offering looking a bit meek Here's a challenge: do you reckon you can fill half-a-terabyte of memory using only a smartphone?…

Sellers sent letters demanding auctions are yanked, conf told Shmoocon Vendor intimidation, default passwords, official state seals for sale. Yes, we're talking about computer-powered election machines.…

Regulator tells lawyers told to get off the fence or face unpleasant fall The Chair of the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission has again taken aim at cryptocurrency speculators, this time warning companies thinking of adding “Blockchain” to their names that his agency is watching them. Closely.…

If an algo ain't ratified by standards groups, it won't be welcome OpenSSL's maintainers have put the squeeze on insecure ciphers, with a raft of changes to how the project's operations.…

Tariff jacks up price for overseas components US President Donald Trump has signed an order to place a 30 per cent tariff on the import of parts used to build solar panels.…

Startup goes silent, scent of burned cash wafts from offices Primary Data, the storage startup offering a metadata-driven abstraction layer, appears to have gone TITSUP – a Total Inability To Sell Us Products.…

Code update hijacking vulnerability was snow joke Blizzard games – played every month by half a billion netizens, apparently – could be hijacked by malicious websites visited by gamers, according to Google's Project Zero team.…

Big Sky state first to pass mandate to bar throttling Montana has become the first US state to lay down its own net neutrality protections.…

Auditor says the right people were elected - probably - despite security & other messes The Australian Electoral Commission's (AEC's) handling of the nation's 2016 election was deeply flawed, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found.…

Here comes the great defender of journalism – and he wants Facebook to pay for news News Corp executive chairman and internationally despised publisher Rupert Murdoch has waded into the fake news debate – and demanded that internet giants pay journalists for their work.…

Patches slammed as 'complete and utter garbage' as Chipzilla U-turns on microcode Intel's fix for Spectre variant 2 – the branch target injection design flaw affecting most of its processor chips – is not to fix it.…

Mr Zuckerberg, are we the baddies? Facebook has admitted it was "far too slow" to recognize that its systems were being used to "spread misinformation and corrode democracy."…

Maiden flight faces delay as Congress squabbles over budgets SpaceX's Falcon Heavy maiden launch, pencilled in for the end of this month, is set to be delayed due to the ongoing US government shutdown.…

Court has been asked to toss out 'mystifying' sueball Iconic lads' mag Playboy is suing oddball internet culture website Boing Boing for linking to an Imgur archive featuring scans of centrefold models from over the years – a move described by the US Electronic Frontier Foundation as "frankly mystifying".…

Cash and trophy up for grabs A biennial award backed by the National Museum of Computing for "achievements in computer conservation or restoration" has opened its nominations.…

Newsflash from Microsoft: Future of learning will be supported by teachers and technology Hold on to your hats, Reg readers - Microsoft has some ground-breaking news to offer you: kids of the future are going to need collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity skills for work.…

Shares only double in value this time Another company has discovered the secret of how to send shares soaring overnight: simply add "Blockchain" to your name.…

It's up to you but the fluffy stuff is awesome, beams guidance The UK's National Health Service has said that Brits' patient data can be stored in the cloud – and has given US data centres party to Privacy Shield the thumbs-up.…

The rise and rise of flash How close to reality is the all-flash enterprise data centre?…