Register
Biting the hand that feeds IT -- Enterprise Technology News and Analysis
What's brown and sticky and broke this PC?
Simon Sharwood
Nothing, according to its user. But the techie who tried to fix it found a sweet solution On Call As another week ebbs away, The Register hopes that readers have a nice warm cup of whatever they fancy beside them as we present another instalment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed tale of the trials and tribulations of tech support....
Redis tightens its license terms, pleasing basically no one
Liam Proven
FOSS developers gotta eat, but users need certainty Leading in-memory database vendor Redis is switching to a dual-license approach, imposing far more restrictive terms....
Meta connects Threads to the Fediverse
Simon Sharwood
Doing things outside the walled garden is kinda hard, devs admit Meta's totally-not-a-Twitter clone, Threads, has joined the Fediverse....
Vigorous US lobbying reportedly reversed India PC import license scheme
Laura Dobberstein
Washington was most displeased and New Delhi knew it made a mistake India was subjected to intense US lobbying after suddenly imposing a requirement that computer importers obtain a license, according to a news report on Thursday....
Vernor Vinge, first author to describe cyberspace and 'The Singularity,' dies at 79
Simon Sharwood
CompSci and math professor by trade, he envisaged a galactic Usenet, and was utterly brilliant Obituary Science fiction author and academic Vernor Vinge has departed this life, aged 79....
Indian court halts operations of government-run social media fact checker
Laura Dobberstein
Rights groups protested potential for sneaky censorship of political rivals India's supreme court on Thursday halted a plan to activate a government-run fact-checking unit that would assess info posted about the nation's government posted to social media platforms - the day after it was told to commence operations....
Japan's NTT and NEC reckon they can boost optical network capacities 12x
Simon Sharwood
First tests of manycore fibres hailed as success over oceanic distances Japanese tech titans NTT and NEC reckon they've proven the performance of a novel fiber optic technology that could increase capacity of submarine cables by a factor of 12....
Truck-to-truck worm could infect - and disrupt - entire US commercial fleet
Jessica Lyons
The device that makes it possible is required in all American big rigs, and has poor security Vulnerabilities in common Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) required in US commercial trucks could be present in over 14 million medium- and heavy-duty rigs, according to boffins at Colorado State University....
FBI v the bots: Feds urge denial-of-service defense after critical infrastructure alert
Jessica Lyons
You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, they're telling you why The US government has recommended a series of steps that critical infrastructure operators should take to prevent distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks....
Microsoft faces bipartisan criticism for alleged censorship on Bing in China
Dan Robinson
Redmond says it does what it's told, but still thinks users are better off Microsoft is the subject of growing criticism in the US over allegations that its Bing search engine censors results for users in China that relate to sensitive subjects the state wants blocked....
Congress votes unanimously to ban brokers selling American data to enemies
Brandon Vigliarolo
At least we can all agree on something The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would prohibit data brokers from selling Americans' data to foreign adversaries with an unusual degree of bipartisan support: It passed without a single opposing vote....
Microsoft's first AI PCs Surface with Intel cores and a Copilot key
Iain Thomson
Upgraded fondleslab and laptops limited to business buyers only, for now At a virtual press conference on Thursday, Microsoft showed off the latest additions to its Surface hardware via an updated tablet and business laptops that Redmond assures us are built for using AI for just about everything....
Licensing labyrinth for Power Apps and Dynamics 365 must be clarified, warns expert
Lindsay Clark
Rules still unclear for Microsoft users making potentially costly decisions on enterprise applications Microsoft needs to clarify licensing arrangements around its low-code Power Apps and Dynamics 365 software to prevent users from receiving unexpected bills for their projects....
World's first Neuralink patient enjoying online chess, long Civ 6 sessions
Brandon Vigliarolo
While excited by the implant, Noland Arbaugh says it's not perfect and there's still work to be done Neuralink's first human patient is now a public figure, with the company publishing a video yesterday showing him playing chess on a laptop and talking about how "freakin' lucky" he is to be involved in the tests....
Cloud Software Group snubs GPL obligations, say critics
Liam Proven
Spawn of Citrix and Tibco 'no longer able to support the community edition of JasperReports Server' Even if you decide to stop offering free editions, you don't get to stop providing the source code to FOSS, users of JasperReports Server are complaining....
Yacht dealer to the stars attacked by Rhysida ransomware gang
Connor Jones
MarineMax may be in choppy waters after 'stolen data' given million-dollar price tag The Rhysida ransomware group claims it was responsible for the cyberattack at US luxury yacht dealer MarineMax earlier this month....
Uncle Sam, 15 US states launch antitrust war on Apple
Brandon Vigliarolo
Lawsuit alleges iGiant rips off fans, stifles dev innovation, makes it tough to dump iOS for rivals The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust complaint against Apple, accusing the iMaker of stifling innovation and undermining competitors through its App Store guidelines and developer agreements....
Meta, Microsoft, X, Match pledge selves to Epic battle against Apple App Store
Richard Currie
You have my sword ... and my bow ... and my axe! Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match Group are piling on Apple in support of Epic Games' ongoing legal battle over the Cupertino giant's stranglehold on its App Store....
Micron bounces back as AI drives up memory prices
Dan Robinson
'Our HBM is sold out for calendar 2024,' trills CEO Micron is basking in a market bounceback, crediting the surge of interest in AI for a jump in the company's revenue, even though buyers face the prospect of rising memory prices for the year ahead....
SAP users aren't keen on upping spending right now
Lindsay Clark
Cloud and upgrade conversions remain steady if sluggish, according to ERP spending bellwether DSAG The German-speaking SAP user group has released data showing the region's appetite for budget increases in spending is diminishing, casting a shadow over the prospects for cloud transformation projects....
One rack. 120kW of compute. Taking a closer look at Nvidia's DGX GB200 NVL72 beast
Tobias Mann
1.44 exaFLOPs of FP4, 13.5 TB of HBM3e, 2 miles of NVLink cables, in one liquid cooled unit GTC Nvidia revealed its most powerful DGX server to date on Monday. The 120kW rack scale system uses NVLink to stitch together 72 of its new Blackwell accelerators into what's essentially one big GPU capable of more than 1.4 exaFLOPS performance -- at FP4 precision anyway....
UN: E-waste is growing 5x faster than it can be recycled
Thomas Claburn
Right to Repair should be the Obligation to Repair, if we want to avoid drowning in trashed electronics We're creating electronic waste almost five times faster than we're recycling it using documented methods, according to a United Nations report released on Wednesday....
UK council won't say whether two-week 'cyber incident' impacted resident data
Connor Jones
Security experts insist ransomware is involved but Leicester zips its lips Leicester City Council continues to battle a suspected ransomware attack while keeping schtum about the key details....
Qualcomm infuses AI support into Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 platform
Dan Robinson
Boosted on-device generative AI's not just for the flagship smartphone kids Qualcomm is pushing out its second smartphone platform within a week, in this case an extension of its Snapdragon 7 series for high-end devices that are built to a lower price point than flagship premium smartphones....
Nominet to restructure, slash jobs after losing 'major deal'
Richard Speed
Prices also set to rise after being frozen since 2020 Nominet is cutting staff on the back of market pressure, including the loss of a government cyber contract and is considering a domain registration price increase, according to an update from its CEO....
Nutanix catapults IP theft sueball at DBaaS startup Tessell
Simon Sharwood
Claims former staff ripped off IP and even did demos for their new company on Nutanix computers Nutanix has brought a lawsuit against database-as-a-service startup Tessell, an outfit founded by three of its ex-employees, alleging the upstart's products are rip-offs of Nutanix's own Era database management product....
First the Super Bowl, now this: Kansas City getting a Google bit barn
Brandon Vigliarolo
Exact location, power source, and go-live date unknown. But don't worry, there'll be digital jobs Google has announced plans to drop $1 billion on a new datacenter in Kansas City, Missouri - its first in the state - though when it'll come online is anyone's guess....