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Microsoft virty server, storage software + Fujitsu hardware Fujitsu has introduced a Microsoft software-flavoured hyper-converged infrastructure appliance product. PRIMEFLEX for Storage Spaces Direct uses Microsoft virtualised infrastructure software, including Storage Spaces, and comes in pre-configured and pre-tested systems based on Fujitsu's PRIMERGY x86 servers, all-flash storage, and networking.…

First ray of light for ~1,000 contractors who've gone without pay for weeks Tech contractors left unpaid by the “suspension” of activities by Australian company Plutus Payroll finally have the prospect of good news, after the firm strongly hinted at conciliation with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and started talking to its customers again.…

But the cloud data warehouse startup is bracing itself for IPO Cloud data warehouse startup Snowflake has picked up a $100m D-round of funding.…

The life-changing effects of algorithmic bias Bureaucrats don’t just come in uniforms and peaked caps. They come in 1U racks, too. They’ll deny you credit, charge you more for paperclips that someone in another neighbourhood, and maybe even stop you getting out of jail. Algorithms are calling the shots these days, and they may not be as impartial as you thought.…

Don't cloudify your IT infrastructure lightly Managers of enterprise systems are being bombarded by messages touting the supposed benefits of cloud for cost reductions and greater IT “flexibility.”…

And lament that early browsers gave up on web site authoring tools and created monsters Every relationship has its rough edges, places where actions scrape, and through constant repetition, rub raw. Those tender spots can heal if left alone and if the parties are wiling to listen. But where the irritation continues, this raw spot becomes a wound that never closes, forcing a choice between continuing pain and a painful separation.…

Big Blue thinks companies should do the thing it absolutely refuses to do IBM, the company that just weeks ago said it was doing away with its work-from-home policy, is now preaching the benefits of telecommuting to customers.…

VMware and Pivotal are going to bring microsegmentation to Cloud Foundry Remember pets and cattle? CERN's 2012 metaphor to describe on-premises servers you name and care for lavishly versus virtualized cloud servers you never name, run in a herd and snuff out without a second's thought?…

Australia's site blocking legislation gets another outing Emboldened by success, Foxtel has fired off a new round of suballs with the aim of blocking more pirate sites from Australian users.…

Disney Research reckons TV, phone, and FM can carry Internet of Things comms Instead of Internet of Things devices generating their own radio waves, many proposals envisage sensors piggybacking their communications on other signals, in what's known as “backscatter communications”.…

Not a new version, but a bunch of bug-fixes Debian hasn't released a new version of Jessie, but its Version 8.8 that landed over the weekend repairs more than 100 package bugs.…

Check your hash, delete the app, change your passwords If you use the popular video transcoder Handbrake on a Mac, the distributors want you to check the download hash after one of their mirrors was compromised.…

BIOS fixes for most boxen landed Friday Dell, which last week was scrambling to work out which of its systems are affected by the Intel AMT vulnerability, has caught up with peers HP Inc, Lenovo and Fujitsu.…

Database giant still flirting with America's broadband watchdog Oracle's co-CEO has sent another bizarre love letter to the head of America's communications watchdog, the FCC.…

Don't fear – humankind will adapt, this here Pew report claims The Pew Research Center's latest report, The Future of Jobs and Jobs Training, warns that machines are eating our brains.…

Hmm, who could possibly do such a thing? Emmanuel Macron, the front-runner in France's presidential election, has condemned the online leakage of what's alleged to be his campaign staff's emails.…

Gawd, and we thought El Reg hacks' martini expense claims were bad The FBI reckons scammers netted more than $5bn in four years by emailing fake invoices and similar bogus claims to beancounters, tricking them into handing over company cash.…

State Dept asks public for comment on proposals to probe immigrants' online profiles The US State Department has asked the public to comment on changes to its immigrant vetting procedures – particularly the bit where it demands people's social media handles.…

Two big cases barreling through America's courts Analysis The holes and flaws in America's copyright law are under serious review thanks to two decisions by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – both of which come with significant implications for media companies.…

Not enough eyeballs in goggles to justify in-house production Proving yet again that goggled nausea is a hard sell, Facebook's virtual reality arm Oculus on Thursday said it would shut down Story Studio, its VR production unit.…

Exploit to pwn systems using vPro and AMT Code dive You can remotely commandeer and control computers that use vulnerable Intel chipsets by sending them empty authentication strings.…

Fondleslab sales plummet goes from 'bad' to 'IBM' Tablet sales have once again fallen, as the market logged its tenth consecutive quarter of decline.…

Brit plod used Terrorism Act to collar snapper. Hello, 2005 The chief constable of Sussex Police has labelled his staff “everyday heroes” for using the UK's Terrorism Act to arrest a photographer taking pictures of Hove Town Hall.…

Cyber florist's supplier Ecomnova fingered after backend systems hacked Malware has infected backend systems used by Brit high street chain Debenhams – and swiped 26,000 people's personal information in the process.…

Game's the same, just got more fierce, apparently A group of money-grabbing cybercrooks have switched up their tactics in a pretty interesting way, we're told. Buckle up and let us explain.…

Unlike BA, Face and crew, not accused of crime they didn't commit A newly discovered hacking crew is creating all sorts of mischief, despite largely relying on off-the-shelf tools rather than custom malware.…

Brings total action days to 20 Unite has called for a fresh wave of strikes in its long-running dispute against 1,800 job cuts at IT giant Fujitsu.…

Yep, the people's Liberation Army is fielding a university team HPC Blog With 20 university teams, Asia Supercomputer Community 2017 is the largest student cluster competition in the world. So it’s only natural that this story, which will give you a chance to meet the teams via video, will be the longest student cluster competition story in history.…

Crowd or non crowd - network industry rages on numbers Special Report Which? magazine's claim that the UK has "worse 4G than Peru", widely reported by the national media this week, has reopened an highly charged industry debate about the reliability of network data collection.…

Conference coming in a week and a bit - we can’t say it any louder Events If you want to see how real world organisations are putting DevOps, Containers and Continuous Delivery to work, you’ve got 11 days to secure one of the remaining places at Continuous Lifecycle London 2017.…

Get yourself a fistful of plastic fantastics instead You’ve got until the end of today to spend your old paper £5 notes before they cease to be legal tender.…

A week in storage: You, me and NVME Round-up The week has seen an acceleration of NVME news - Aparna, Intel, Micron, and XIO - and cloud-related news as well, with Rubrik picking up a huge funding round. These were the headline items but there was a whole lot more going on and here's a representative selection.…

400 folk will be moving in sometime in autumn Amazon says it will be opening a new drone research and development centre in Cambridge, England, later this year.…

Yep, Fatboy slim-e are reading The Economist Cybercriminals have put together a strain of ransomware that changes the cost of the extortionate demands depending on the victim’s location, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future reports.…

Dispute with Plutus Payroll heading to court, no payday in sight for hundreds Exclusive Plutus Payroll has named the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as the party with which it is in dispute and ostensibly the reason it has been unable to pay hundreds of contractors owed weeks of pay, as The Register has reported earlier this week.…

Or you could roll over and go back to sleep Something for the Weekend, Sir? Dabbs (Mrs) and I are in bed. She is shaking my shoulder to wake me up.…

Fear not – there's life beyond the community lifeline Canonical is killing its Unity convergence play and Mir display, but fans of Ubuntu need not panic.…

They're not infallible Analysis Take two companies with two new storage products. One is a physical array and the other is a virtual array built from clustered server nodes. Both are block access. Will the same selling/marketing approach be successful for both? Should you sell to CIOs or to lines of business (LOBs)?…

Court of Appeal upholds interest claims in historic dispute BT has been ordered to dig into its pocket and pay rivals £22m in interest following its overcharged for its backhaul ethernet services between 2006-2011.…

The Farce was strong with this one after he played Star Wars games on the job but applied the wrong force ON-CALL Hello Friday! And hello also to On-Call, The Register's weekly reader-contributed tale of dirty data centre deeds done dirty cheap.…

The C919 will compete with the 737 and A320, has already won 99 orders China's first large passenger jet has successfully taken to the skies and then landed again.…

Long tasks that consume more juice are worth it, though Docker may be the darling of DevOps, but it's something of a minor extravagance when it comes to energy consumption.…

Stealthy attack code spotted going after payment systems Microsoft's security team is urging developers to shore up their software update systems – after catching miscreants hijacking an editing application's download channels to inject malware into victims' PCs.…

GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon are now off the menu Devuan Linux has released its second release candidate.…

Four, eight or twelve servers, with up to 600VMs in a Stack Dell EMC has confirmed it's getting into the Azure Stack business.…

Redmond's hot new browser counts '1,2,3,4' as '1,1,4,4' Microsoft's Edge browser is the subject of an amusing new bug report, alleging it somehow manages to screw up printing strings of numbers.…

Take than, cowardly LGMs! We have a few grams of your grains The Curiosity Rover's drill is in trouble.…

Google even paid a developer a bounty for spotting it Google's known about the issue behind yesterday's wave of phishing attacks bearing links to Google Docs for at least five years.…

Creepy app seller is going to have to QA its own buggy software Bug bounty organizer HackerOne has told stalkerware developer FlexiSpy that it won't take its business because of the ethics – or lack thereof – that the software maker exhibits.…

Snapdragon designer furious over Apple halting royalty payments, wants revenge Qualcomm is considering asking for an import ban on iPhones coming into the United States in retaliation for Apple stopping royalty payments to the chip designer.…