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130,000 complaints and counting from bank's users? So sorry to hear that

British bank TSB is reportedly hiring an extra 250 customer service bods to help it cope with an avalanche of customer complaints after its IT meltdown earlier this year.…

Not us this time, Mastercard tells El Reg

A problem with credit and debit card readers has left some unlucky UK retailers staring at an error message rather than collecting cash.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Scientists have found a rapid way of producing magnesite, a mineral which stores carbon dioxide. If this can be developed to an industrial scale, it opens the door to removing CO2 from the atmosphere for long-term storage, thus countering the global warming effect of atmospheric CO2. This work is presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Boston. Now, for the first time, researchers have explained how magnesite forms at low temperature, and offered a route to dramatically accelerating its crystallization. A tonne of naturally-occurring magnesite can remove around half a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, but the rate of formation is very slow. The researchers were able to show that by using polystyrene microspheres as a catalyst, magnesite would form within 72 days. The microspheres themselves are unchanged by the production process, so they can ideally be reused. Project leader, Professor Ian Power from Trent University in Ontario added: "Using microspheres means that we were able to speed up magnesite formation by orders of magnitude. This process takes place at room temperature, meaning that magnesite production is extremely energy efficient. For now, we recognize that this is an experimental process, and will need to be scaled up before we can be sure that magnesite can be used in carbon sequestration (taking CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently storing it as magnesite). This depends on several variables, including the price of carbon and the refinement of the sequestration technology, but we now know that the science makes it do-able."

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Extends coverage from AWS and HPE to Isilon-slinger

Scale-out filer Qumulo's QF2 software is now available on Dell’s PowerEdge R740xd storage server, a 2U 2-socket Xeon Skylake, all-NVMe flash drive system.…

Report lift veil on online fraudsters' current habits

Rogue mobile apps have become the most common fraud attack vector, according to the latest quarterly edition of RSA Security's global fraud report.…

That noise was AWS rolling over in its sleep

Alibaba and Elastic, the purveyor of scalable open-source search engine Elasticsearch, are to offer their joint Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch product outside of China for the first time.…

Now your devices can join you in bellowing at Redmond's products

Audio IoT networking firm Chirp has convinced Microsoft to integrate its tech into the Azure IoT platform.…

Latticework pushes 'secure' cloudy boxen

A Marvell co-founder's cloud edge firm appears to have thrown its hat in the personal NAS ring with its Wi-Fi-connected Amber product.…

Bit of M&A action in Microsoft Dynamics world

QuantiQ has snaffled certain assets of fellow Microsoft Dynamics boutique Profile Enterprise Solutions.…

Uncle Sam's renewable boffins will triple their power in 2019

HPE has been named as supplier of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's new low-energy supercomputer, Eagle, which will power up in January 2019.…

More than 5 million cellphone users in Cuba received free internet on Tuesday, in an eight-hour test before the government launches sales of the service. The test marks the first time internet services were available nationwide. Reuters reports: Cuba is one of the Western Hemisphere's least connected countries. There are hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots in Cuba but virtually no home penetration. Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, considered the country's social media pioneer, raved that she had directly sent a tweet from her mobile. In another tweet, she called the test a "citizen's victory." On the streets of Havana, mobile users said they were happy about the day of free internet, even as some complained that connectivity was notably slower than usual. Hotspots currently charge about $1 an hour although monthly wages in Cuba average just $30. The government has not yet said how much most Cubans would pay for mobile internet, or when exactly sales of the service will begin. But [the state-run telecommunications monopoly ETECSA] is already charging companies and embassies $45 a month for four gigabytes. Analysts have said broader Web access will ultimately weaken government control over what information reaches people in a country where the state has a monopoly on the media.

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El Reg talks to Dr Yuval Yarom about Intel's memory leaking catastrophe

Interview In the wake of yet another collection of Intel bugs, The Register had the chance to speak to Foreshadow co-discoverer and University of Adelaide and Data61 researcher Dr Yuval Yarom about its impact.…

From FaaS to Lambda and beyond...

Events Whether you want to experiment with some new projects, rebuild your organisation from the ground up, or just check you’re already on the right path, you should join us at Serverless Computing London in November.…

ID fraud drops to four-year low

New figures reveal UK identity fraud dropped during the first six months of 2018 to reach a four-year low.…

Licensed to chill or unlicensed to thrill...

Analysis LPWAN - low power wide area network - is the proposed connectivity tech of choice for powering the Internet of Things - and it comes in many flavours. An IDTechEx Research report put it into perspective recently, when it predicted that there will be 2.7 billion LPWAN IoT connections by 2029.…

Xiaoice's verse is 'disgusting' say rival human poets

Microsoft’s chatbot Xiaoice does a lot more than other bots. She has presented the weather on live TV and now even composed a book of poems.…

On Monday, SpaceX let reporters take a look inside its Crew Dragon capsule for the first time, as well as hear from the four astronauts: Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley, Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins. Ars Technica writes about several pieces of hardware observed at the event in Hawthorne, California: During the event at SpaceX, engineers guided reporters through various displays. Outside, under a resplendent blue sky with the rolling hills of Palos Verdes in the distance, media was invited to crawl into a low-fidelity mockup of the crew Dragon spacecraft. This was a roomy vehicle, especially in comparison to NASA's current ride to the space station, a cramped Soyuz with a capacity of three. The Dragon will comfortably carry a normal complement of four for NASA, but seven seats can fit inside. On the second floor of its main factory, where astronauts have trained in recent years, SpaceX also showed off two simulators publicly for the first time. This marked the first time SpaceX has revealed details about the controls and the interior of its crewed spacecraft. The cockpit simulator demonstrated the controls that Dragon astronauts will have at their command. In comparison to the space shuttle and its more than 1,000 buttons, switches, and controls, the Dragon capsule has a modest array of three flat screens and two rows of buttons below. These touch screens selectively display the necessary controls during flight and are the primary interface astronauts have with the vehicle. Below are two rows of manual buttons, 38 in total, that provide back-up control of the spacecraft. Many of the buttons are situated beneath clear panels, intended to never be used, because they are often the third option after the touch screens and ground control of the Dragon. One control stood out -- a large black and red handle in the middle of the console with "EJECT" printed in clear white letters above it. This initiates the launch escape system, which rapidly pulls the spacecraft away from the rocket in the case of an emergency during the ascent into space. It must be pulled, then twisted. Normally the flight computers would initiate such a maneuver, but the prominence of the escape system handle underlines its importance. Notably, after the vehicle reaches orbit, this control becomes "deadened," such that accidentally pulling it in space would do nothing. CNBC has included several pictures of the Crew Dragon capsule mock-up in their report. CNN also has a first look video with text and quotes from the astronauts.

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Fish boozing in alcohol and taurine more likely to ignore pals and look for a fight

Can fish get drunk? Yes, apparently.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Live Science: Scientists found that death travels in unremitting waves through a cell, moving at a rate of 30 micrometers (one-thousandth of an inch) every minute, they report in a new study published Aug. 10 in the journal Science. That means, for instance, that a nerve cell, whose body can reach a size of 100 micrometers, could take as long as 3 minutes and 20 seconds to die. Apoptosis -- or programmed cell death -- is necessary for clearing our bodies of unnecessary or harmful cells, such as those that are infected by viruses. It also helps shape organs and other features in a developing fetus. To figure this out, Ferrell and his team observed the process in one of the larger cells present in nature: egg cells of Xenopus laevis, or African clawed frogs. They filled test tubes with fluid from the eggs and triggered apoptosis, which they watched unfold by tagging involved proteins with fluorescent light. If they saw fluorescent light, it meant apoptosis was taking place. They found that the fluorescent light traveled through the test tubes at a constant speed. If apoptosis had carried on due to simple diffusion (the spreading of substances from an area of high concentration to one of low concentration), the process would have slowed down toward the end, according to the study. Since it didn't, the researchers concluded that the process they observed must be "trigger waves," which they likened to "the spread of a fire through a field." The caspases that are first activated, activate other molecules of caspases, which activate yet others, until the entire cell is destroyed.

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In a statement Tuesday, Verizon announced deals making Apple and Google its first video providers for a 5G wireless service its planning to launch in four cities later this year. From the report: The home broadband service will debut in Los Angeles, Houston and Sacramento, California, as well as the newly announced fourth city of Indianapolis, Verizon said Tuesday in a statement. With the introduction, Verizon will provide 5G customers either a free Apple TV box or free subscription to Google's YouTube TV app for live television service, according to people familiar with the plan. After shelving its own online TV effort, New York-based Verizon decided to partner with the two technology giants for video content, a first step toward eventually competing nationally against internet and pay TV providers such as AT&T and Comcast Using fifth-generation wireless technology, Verizon plans to beam online services to home receivers, delivering speeds that match or exceed landline connections.

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