TheRegister
AI model 'personalities' shape the quality of generated code
Generative AI coding models have common strengths and weaknesses, but express those characteristics differently due to variations in coding style.…
Box's AI agents set to help US government agencies
Not to be left behind in the flurry of government-wide AI purchasing deals, Box has signed a deal with the feds that'll inject some agentic AI into federal government systems. …
MS confidence in Windows 11: Pay us to host VMs for when your desktop inevitably dies
Microsoft is so confident in the reliability and security of its Windows 11 OS that it's now offering businesses the ability to quickly dump users onto temporary VMs in its cloud when, not if, their desktops and laptops break.…
UK expands police facial recognition rollout with 10 new vans heading to a town near you
A fresh expansion of UK crimefighters' access to live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being described by officials as "an excellent opportunity for policing." Privacy campaigners diagree.…
Marc Andreessen wades into the UK's Online Safety Act furor
Geek-turned-venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen has weighed in on the arguments surrounding the UK's Online Safety Act, accusing the UK government of leaking his input.…
Microsoft wares may be UK public sector's only viable option
Debate Not for the first time, Microsoft is in the spotlight for the UK government's money it voraciously consumes – apparently £1.9 billion a year in software licensing, and roughly £9 billion over five years. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of voices challenging whether this is good use of public money. After all, aren't there plenty of open source alternatives?…
Secure chat darling Matrix admits pair of 'high severity' protocol flaws need painful fixes
The maintainers of the federated secure chat protocol Matrix are warning users of a pair of "high severity protocol vulnerabilities," addressed in the latest version, saying patching them requires a breaking change in servers and clients.…
Some users report their Firefox browser is scoffing CPU power
People are noticing Firefox gobbling extra CPU and electricity, apparently caused by an "inference engine" built into recent versions of Firefox. Don't say El Reg didn't try to warn you.…
I started losing my digital privacy in 1974, aged 11
Column We already live in a world where pretty much every public act - online or in the real world - leaves a mark in a database somewhere. But how far back does that record extend? I recently learned that record goes back further than I'd seriously imagined.…
NASA mulls sending a rescue rocket to boost Swift observatory's orbit
NASA is seeking solutions for a way to raise the orbit of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory despite the spacecraft being marked for termination after FY2026 under the agency's budget proposal.…
Ransomware crew spills Saint Paul's 43GB of secrets after city refuses to cough up cash
The Interlock ransomware gang has flaunted a 43GB haul of files allegedly stolen from the city of Saint Paul, following a late-July cyberattack that forced the Minnesota capital to declare a state of national emergency.…
Chap found chunks of an asteroid older than Earth in his suburban living room
In late June media speculated that a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere caused widespread sightings of a celestial fireball during daylight hours across the southeast USA. Scientists have now confirmed space rocks caused the phenomenon, citing as evidence a meteorite they found in a resident’s living room.…
Epic Games has another win over Apple and Google, this time in Australia
Australia’s Federal Court has given Epic Games another win in its global fight against the way Apple and Google run their app stores.…
Crypto crasher Do Kwon admits guilt over failed not-so-stablecoin that erased $41 billion
Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon has pled guilty to committing fraud when promoting the so-called "stablecoin" Terra USD and now faces time in jail.…
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday baker's dozen: 12 critical bugs plus a SharePoint RCE
Microsoft’s August Patch Tuesday flaw-fixing festival addresses 111 problems in its products, a dozen of which are deemed critical, and one moderate-severity flaw that is listed as being publicly known.…
Perplexity takes a shine to Chrome, offers Google $34.5 billion
AI search biz Perplexity has offered to pay about twice as much as it is worth to acquire Chrome from Google.…
Manpower franchise discloses data theft after RansomHub posts alleged stolen data
Global staffing firm Manpower confirmed ransomware criminals broke into its Lansing, Michigan franchise's network and stole personal information belonging to 144,189 people, months after the extortionists claimed that they pilfered "all of [the company's] confidential data." …
You've got drought: UK gov suggests you save water by . . . deleting old emails
With many parts of England grappling with a water shortage, the UK's National Drought Group (NDG), which includes both government and non-government agencies, has suggested citizens can help by... clearing out their inboxes.…
Beijing doesn't want Nvidia's H20s anywhere near sensitive government workloads
Nvidia may have the Trump administration's blessing to resume shipments of its H20 AI accelerators to China, but in Beijing, government officials are now pressuring companies to use what they describe as less-advanced semiconductors.…
US lawmakers introduce bill to update ancient export control IT systems
The US government agency in charge of keeping advanced technology out of the hands of America's enemies desperately needs an IT modernization to accomplish its mission. So a group of elected officials is trying (again) to get the funds it needs to do so. …