China orders trial of aged care robots that can cook, clean, and provide emotional support Elon Musk suggested this to Beijing years ago AI + ML10 Jun 2025 |
ICANN waves hands in protest at AFRINIC election arrangement Worries lawyers overseeing poll may have disqualifying entanglements Legal09 Jun 2025 |
Waymo problems in La La Land as robotaxis set aflame Video Services locked down in America's second-largest city Bootnotes09 Jun 2025 | 9
1.5 TB of James Webb Space Telescope data just hit the internet Online catalog gives open science access to data from early universe Science09 Jun 2025 | 5
US lawmakers fire back a response to Trump's NASA cuts Big expensive Moon rockets = good. Science = yeah, whatever Science09 Jun 2025 | 13
China's asteroid-and-comet hunter probe unfurls a 'solar wing' Asia in brief Plus: Hitachi turns graybeards into AI agents, Tiananmen anniversary censorship, AWS in Taiwan, and more! Science09 Jun 2025 | 4
£127M wasted on failed UK nuclear cleanup plan Don't worry, only 100 more years of Sellafield nuclear site cleansing to go Science07 Jun 2025 | 60
Trump lifts US supersonic flight ban, says he's 'Making Aviation Great Again' It's boom time for the next generation of fast travel Science07 Jun 2025 | 161
Ex-NASA Admin pick blames Musk ties for pulled nomination Jared Isaacman reveals how space agency might have looked under his watch Science06 Jun 2025 | 60
Japan's latest Moon landing written off as a failure after ispace probe goes dark UPDATED Rangefinder broke during descent so lander didn't slow down Science05 Jun 2025 | 51
Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire Water, water everywhere, but it would just make it worse Science05 Jun 2025 | 263
60 years ago the US took its first walk in space with Gemini 4 Four years later, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon Science04 Jun 2025 | 13
Cops want Apple, Google to kill stolen phones remotely – so why won't they? Tech giants say blocking purloined devices via IMEI could open new fraud risks Personal Tech04 Jun 2025 | 79
Meta just saved an Illinois nuclear plant that was set to be mothballed The 20-year deal with Constellation will slake Zuckercorp's thirst for energy to power AI datacenters Science03 Jun 2025 | 29
Engineers bring Psyche's thrusters back online Diagnosing a borkage from a million miles away Science03 Jun 2025 | 18
Regulator sues product comparison site alleged to only compare products on which it earned commission No wonder those products always rated so highly Legal03 Jun 2025 | 18
NASA boss-to-be gets spaced as proposed budget cuts detailed White House withdraws Isaacman pick amid potential $6B funding drop Science02 Jun 2025 | 28
Wanted: IT manager for UK government agency – £60k So much for cushy public sector roles – a non-IT manager at McDonalds makes more Public Sector02 Jun 2025 | 95
Odd homage to '2001: A Space Odyssey' sees 'Blue Danube' waltz beamed at Voyager 1 Birthdays for ESA (50) and Johann Strauss (200) marked with music of the spheres Science02 Jun 2025 | 70
American science put on starvation diet National Science Foundation FY 2026 budget cut by more than 60% Science30 May 2025 | 80
Enterprises are getting stuck in AI pilot hell, say Chatterbox Labs execs Interview Security, not model performance, is what's stalling adoption
Chap claims Atari 2600 'absolutely wrecked' ChatGPT at chess 1.19MHz eight-bit CPU trounced modern GPUs – can you do better with your retro-tech?
US infrastructure could crumble under cyberattack, ex-NSA advisor warns Infosec in Brief PLUS: Doxxers jailed; Botnets bounce back; CISA questioned over app-vetting program closure; And more
Chinese spy crew appears to be preparing for conflict by backdooring 75+ critical orgs SentinelOne discovered the campaign when they tried to hit the security vendor's own servers
Field support chap got married – which took down a mainframe Who, Me? If you like it to keep working, don’t put a ring on it
Seagate still HAMRing away at the 100 TB disk drive decades later Feature The journey to mass production has been extraordinarily difficult – will it be worth it?
Blocking stolen phones from the cloud can be done, should be done, won't be done Opinion Big tech can't be bothered to fight crime. It can barely be bothered even to say so
China's asteroid-and-comet hunter probe unfurls a 'solar wing' Asia in brief Plus: Hitachi turns graybeards into AI agents, Tiananmen anniversary censorship, AWS in Taiwan, and more!
BT won't budge over pay hike for manager grade employees Prospect union threatens to up campaign, raise dispute with CEO
Microsoft cuts the Windows 11 bloat for Xbox handhelds If gamers can have a slimline version of the OS, why not IT admins?
Feds arrest DoD techie, claim he dumped top secret files in park for foreign spies to find 28-year-old alleged to have made multiple drops to folks who turned out to be undercover FBI agents Security30 May 2025 | 38
Data watchdog put cops on naughty step for lost CCTV footage Greater Manchester Police reprimanded over hours of video that went AWOL Storage30 May 2025 | 20
Astroboffins analyzed old data and found a candidate dwarf planet in the Oort cloud Thank whoever decided to make the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey public for this discovery Science30 May 2025 | 23
US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media Against backdrop of EU rules on spread of misinfo plus UK probing role of online hate in far right riots Personal Tech29 May 2025 | 116
Apple has only 30 days to comply with EU DMA rules Users leaving App Store to make a third party payment must be free of charge, says Euro Commish Applications29 May 2025 | 13
China to visit Earth’s ‘quasi-moon’ and bring a chunk of it back home Tianwen 2 probe launched Thursday and will also get up close with a comet Science29 May 2025 | 14
India none-too-subtly reminds Big Tech that local laws prohibit dark patterns ‘Consumers will not tolerate deceit’ Minister tells Amazon, Apple, Samsung and Uber Legal29 May 2025 | 9
MIT boffins claim liquid sodium battery could one day power aircraft while sucking up CO2 Prototype packs triple the energy density of lithium-ion, they claim Science28 May 2025 | 52
German court parks four Volkswagen execs in jail over Dieselgate scandal More cases about 2015 software swindle stuck in legal traffic jam Legal28 May 2025 | 50
SpaceX resets 'Days Since Last Starship Explosion' counter to zero, again Musk’s rocket co fails to deploy any dummy satellites either Science28 May 2025 | 79
Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz Nick Clegg, former politico and Zuckcorp policy Prez, seems confused, can Reg readers help him? AI + ML27 May 2025 | 149
Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers or face its wrath No, not Amazon. China’s SHEIN is in the spotlight for fake discounts, grubby greenery, and evading inquiries Public Sector27 May 2025 | 66
Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away Who, Me? Life in a corporate aquarium didn’t go swimmingly Offbeat26 May 2025 | 108
Remembering John Young, co-founder of web archive Cryptome Obituary The original leak site that never sold out, never surrendered Offbeat24 May 2025 | 11
Forgotten Turing treasure trove rescued from attic goes under the hammer Computing pioneer's personal papers expected to fetch tens of thousands Offbeat24 May 2025 | 17
FAA gives SpaceX the nod for Starship Flight 9 but doubles the danger zone Updated Aircraft Hazard Area now stretches 1,600 nautical miles Science23 May 2025 | 25
BOFH: The Boss meets the unbearable weight of innovation Episode 10 The future of snacks is here, and it's a bit unsteady BOFH23 May 2025 | 40
Grandpa-conning crook jailed over sugar-coated drug scam Callous fraudster tricked elderly gents into smuggling meth hidden in chocolate truffles Offbeat23 May 2025 | 13
Space Force tech mission threatened by staff and funding black hole Budget slashing has 'outsized impact' on us, says commander who fears branch not ready for orbital war Public Sector22 May 2025 | 17
Irish privacy watchdog OKs Meta to train AI on EU folks' posts Case in Germany could derail Zuck's plans, noyb tells El Reg fight isn't over AI + ML22 May 2025 | 25
VMware price hikes? Between 800 and 1,500%, claim Euro customers Report slates end of perpetual licenses, death of monthly pay-as-you-go model, and 'punitive' changes by Broadcom PaaS + IaaS22 May 2025 | 54
China finds a previously unknown microbe on its space station Don’t panic! It's related to an earthly bug, eats gelatin, not astronauts, and may have adapted to life in space Science22 May 2025 | 17
Microsoft-backed AI out-forecasts hurricane experts without crunching the physics LLM trained on decades of weather data claimed to be faster, and cheaper European Supercomputing21 May 2025 | 24
Estimating AI energy usage is fiendishly hard – but this report took a shot And it gets even harder when you try to estimate CO2 emissions AI + ML21 May 2025 | 11
Judge allows Delta's lawsuit against CrowdStrike to proceed with millions in damages on the line CS remains hopeful damages will be limited to seven figures Security21 May 2025 | 5
NASA was eyeing ISS crew cutbacks before Trump's budget landed Will the US President take credit for that one as well? Science21 May 2025 | 3
UK 'extremely dependent' on US for space security After 60 years+ cooperation on space and military ops, worrying 'rhetoric' from Team Trump has Brits examining options Security21 May 2025 | 108
Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would create a regulation-free AI hellscape, AGs warn Republican defense of states' rights doesn't apply to curtailing LLMs, apparently AI + ML20 May 2025 | 28
Actors' union complains about Epic Games cloning Darth Vader I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further AI + ML20 May 2025 | 29
Trump signs TAKE IT DOWN law meant to stop revenge porn Fine-print is vague and broad, could easily be abused to blunt protected speech Personal Tech20 May 2025 | 83
Show us your face: New Orleans PD reportedly got secret facial recognition alerts Police took Big Easy attitude to the rules, says WaPo Legal19 May 2025 | 8
DARPA zaps popcorn with laser power beamed 5.3 miles through air 800-watt demo breaks distance record for optical energy transmission Science19 May 2025 | 37
When LLMs get personal info they are more persuasive debaters than humans Large-scale disinfo campaigns could use this in machines that adapt 'to individual targets.' Are we having fun yet? AI + ML19 May 2025 | 17
Millions at risk after attackers steal UK legal aid data dating back 15 years Cybercriminals lifted info including addresses, ID numbers, and financial records from agency systems Cyber-crime19 May 2025 | 49
No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon Feature As long as you're quiet about it Science17 May 2025 | 94
America’s consumer watchdog drops leash on proposed data broker crackdown Crooks must be licking their lips at the possibilities Personal Tech16 May 2025 | 10
Defamation case against DEF CON terminated with prejudice 'We hope it makes attendees feel safe reporting violations' Security16 May 2025 | 4
Microsoft proposes sweeping global concessions to Teams for up to a decade Beast of Redmond runs scared from EC antitrust cops half decade after rivals complained SaaS16 May 2025 | 7
NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix Failure could've triggered a small explosion Science15 May 2025 | 80
Anthropic’s law firm throws Claude under the bus over citation errors in court filing AI footnote fail triggers legal palmface in music copyright spat Legal15 May 2025 | 30
Plan to keep advanced chips from China with tracking tech gains support in Congress Every shipment you make, every FLOP you generate, Uncle Sam will be watching you AI Infrastructure Month15 May 2025 | 25
Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25% Surely Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric has nothing to do with it On-Prem15 May 2025 | 43
Next week's SpaceX Starship test still needs FAA authorization Aiming for the stars, but sometimes hitting the Caribbean Science15 May 2025 | 62
Royal Navy freshens up ships' electromagnetic warfare defenses MEWSIC to Brit crews' ears will see off anti-ship missiles, among other things Offbeat15 May 2025 | 44
Intuitive Machines blames dim lighting and dodgy data for second lunar faceplant Touchdown with no topple? Company aims for third time lucky Science14 May 2025 | 22
Meta's still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb 'Legitimate interest' won't wash, says privacy outfit, as Zuck's org claims activists want to 'delay AI innovation' AI + ML14 May 2025 | 71
Saudi CubeSat gets golden ticket on doomed SLS rocket Trump greenlights slot for Riyadh as NASA's pricey booster teeters on the brink Science14 May 2025 | 14
NSF director memo to staff: Don't worry about those job cuts, at least for now Court orders halt to layoffs – as folks steering American innovation wonder how long injunction will last Science14 May 2025 | 8
Qatar’s $400M jet for Trump is a gold-plated security nightmare Air Force Dumb Bootnotes13 May 2025 | 106
Boffins warn that AI paper mills are swamping science with garbage studies Research flags rise in one-dimensional health research fueled by large language models AI + ML13 May 2025 | 78
After more than half a century, the voyage of Kosmos 482 is over The Soviet Union aimed for Venus, but hit the Indian Ocean instead Science13 May 2025 | 25
Mars may have vast underground oceans and enough H2O to make it a water world Chinese and Australian boffins ask what else could be slowing down seismic waves as they pass through the Red Planet? Science13 May 2025 | 28
Fusion eggheads claim modeling fix for particle escape - at least in stellarators One problem down, x - 1 problems go Science12 May 2025 | 14
CERN boffins turn lead into gold for about a microsecond at unimaginable cost So alchemists had the right idea – they just lacked a 27 km particle accelerator Science12 May 2025 | 39
Paul McCartney, Elton John, other creatives demand AI comes clean on scraping Musicians, artists, writers, actors urge government to protect copyright AI + ML12 May 2025 | 42
US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired Some see an action to benefit Elon. The White House sees an agency obsessed with DEI AI + ML12 May 2025 | 113
TikTok's Chinese app - Douyin - in trouble after spat over the price of jade Asia In Brief PLUS: Huawei's Windows-free PC appears; Robo-car rentals come to China; Europe, India, collab in space; and more Legal12 May 2025 | 4
UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans France's share of MOD cash is growing while the US's shrinks Offbeat10 May 2025 | 78
Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways MIT research team proves pop science eggsplanation wrong Offbeat10 May 2025 | 65
Nip chip smugglers by building trackers into GPUs, US Senator suggests AI phone home On-Prem09 May 2025 | 74
US govt's science foundation purges 37 divisions, equity unit among casualties DEI another day: Trump priorities bite as $1B in grants vanish, layoffs loom Science09 May 2025 | 81
VIPER rover banished to storage as moonshot plan sputters NASA cancels solicitation to get a partner to launch, land, and operate the bot for free Science09 May 2025 | 12
Microsoft wants us to believe AI will crack practical fusion power, driving future AI This BS ends at some point, right? AI Infrastructure Month09 May 2025 | 48
As US scientists flee Trump, MP urges Britain to do more to nab them One concrete suggestion: Looser visa requirements Science09 May 2025 | 140
BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts Episode 9 Look, it's using big words like 'gamification'! BOFH09 May 2025 | 71
NASA JPL boss bails for 'personal reasons' as budget cuts bite Updated Laurie Leshin to leave in June Science08 May 2025 | 16
Amazon touts Vulcan – its first robot with a sense of 'touch' Claims human warehouse workers will still live long and prosper Offbeat08 May 2025 | 13
ESA feeling weightless and unwanted amid proposed NASA cuts Euro space agency insists it's reliable and desirable in face of 'abusive spouse' Science08 May 2025 | 15
'I see you're running a local LLM. Would you like some help with that?' Dev creates official Clippy 'love letter' to query AI models on your box Bootnotes08 May 2025 | 11
Delta Air Lines class action cleared for takeoff over CrowdStrike chaos Judge allows aspects of passenger lawsuit to proceed Security07 May 2025 | 2
NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs It's not rocket science, it's budgeting Databases07 May 2025 | 6
Top sci-fi convention gets an earful from authors after using AI to screen panelists Leave it to the Borg? Scribe David D. Levine slams 'use of planet-destroying plagiarism machines' Bootnotes07 May 2025 | 128
Trump's wind farm funding freeze is so much hot air, say states as they blow sueball to Washington We'd be shocked, just shocked, if Big Tech's renewable energy ambitions aren't known in the White House On-Prem07 May 2025 | 62
Super spyware maker NSO must pay Meta $168M in WhatsApp court battle Don't f&#k with Zuck CSO06 May 2025 | 17
Microsoft burnishes green cred by paying Swedes to burn biomass and bury CO2 Updated Schemes like this are just a license to pollute for tech giants, or so critics say Science06 May 2025 | 12
EU tells US scientists to dump Trump for a lab in Europe Brussels rolls out €500M plan to lure boffins with grants and actual respect for research Science06 May 2025 | 97
Culture comes first in cybersecurity. That puts cybersecurity on the front line in the culture wars Opinion 'Trust us, we're from Trumpland' may not help Microsoft as much as it hopes Columnists06 May 2025 | 46
Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine Who, Me? Fake it till you make it doesn't cut it for mission-critical workloads Columnists05 May 2025 | 96
Altman's eyeball-scanning biometric blockchain orbs officially come to America El Reg checks out shop in SF Bootnotes04 May 2025 | 52