TheRegister
Amazon touts Vulcan – its first robot with a sense of 'touch'
Internet souk Amazon has unveiled a new robot for its warehouses and claims the machine uses a sense of "touch" to shift around 75 percent of the types of packages handled.…
ESA feeling weightless and unwanted amid proposed NASA cuts
NASA's "skinny" budget has rattled its allies. After years of close cooperation, the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking jilted, while others describe the US space scene as adrift in gloom and doubt.…
'I see you're running a local LLM. Would you like some help with that?'
Clippy is back - and this time, its arrival on your desktop as a front-end for locally run LLMs has nothing to do with Microsoft. …
Sudo-rs make me a sandwich, hold the buffer overflows
Canonical's Ubuntu 25.10 is set to make sudo-rs, a Rust-based rework of the classic sudo utility, the default – part of a push to cut memory-related security bugs and lock down core system components.…
Elon Musk’s xAI to pull about half of its smog-belching turbines powering Colossus
Elon Musk's xAI is removing about half of the temporary gas-turbine generators powering its Colossus AI datacenter over the next two months, according to the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, not due to environmental concerns, but because a new nearby substation now supplies the needed power.…
PowerSchool paid thieves to delete stolen student, teacher data. Crooks may have lied
An education tech provider that paid a ransom to prevent the leak of stolen student and teacher data is now watching its school district customers get individually extorted by either the same ransomware crew that hit it – or someone connected to the crooks.…
After that 2024 Windows fiasco, CrowdStrike has a plan – jobs cuts, leaning on AI
CrowdStrike – the Texas antivirus slinger famous for crashing millions of Windows machines last year – plans to cut five percent of its staff, or about 500 workers, in pursuit of "greater efficiencies," according to CEO and co-founder George Kurtz.…
India ready to greenlight Starlink - as long as it lets New Delhi censor and spy
India’s telecom regulator has signaled it’s ready to let Starlink and other satellite-broadband providers operate – but only if they agree to strict conditions, including setting up “special monitoring zones” within 50km of land borders where law enforcement and security agencies are permitted to monitor users.…
Apple exec sends Google shares plunging as he calls AI the new search
An Apple executive's backhanded endorsement of AI as a replacement for traditional internet searches has sent Google stock tumbling. …
Google tries to greenwash massive AI energy consumption with another vague nuclear deal
Google has signed a strategic agreement with nuclear project developer Elementl Power to support the early development of three potential reactor sites in the US. But with no selected reactor tech and no construction timeline, the announcement sounds more like a handwaving exercise to distract onlookers from the massive amount of energy that will be expended as Google and other companies race to capitalize on the AI boom.…
Delta Air Lines class action cleared for takeoff over CrowdStrike chaos
A federal judge has cleared the runway for a class action from disgruntled passengers against Delta Air Lines as turbulence from last year's CrowdStrike debacle continues to buffet the carrier.…
You'll never guess which mobile browser is the worst for data collection
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the slurpiest mobile browser of them all? The answer, according to VPN vendor Surfshark, is Chrome.…
Fedora 42 now an official Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distro
Good news for those fond of crimson headwear – Fedora 42 is now an official distro on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2).…
90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control
Air traffic controllers for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were horrified when all radar and radio equipment, including backup systems, failed last week, cutting communication with aircraft for 90 seconds.…
Nutanix stops being so opinionated about where data must dwell
Next Nutanix is moving beyond its hyperconverged roots by creating containerized versions of its data services and more external storage options, in ways that make it a better target for those migrating away from VMware.…
Human error and power glitches to blame for most outages
Datacenter outages are less frequent and severe, but human error remains one of the most persistent challenges, with between two-thirds and four-fifths of major wobbles involving some element of meatbag-related cause.…
Microsoft updates the Windows 11 Start Menu
Microsoft has confirmed what some Windows Insiders are already noticing – the Windows 11 Start Menu is getting a revamp and a panel for Phone Link.…
NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
NASA's people analytics group has swapped its Neo4j graph database for Memgraph due to costs.…
Curl project founder snaps over deluge of time-sucking AI slop bug reports
Curl project founder Daniel Stenberg is fed up with of the deluge of AI-generated "slop" bug reports and recently introduced a checkbox to screen low-effort submissions that are draining maintainers' time.…
Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?
Comment Retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has weighed in on the increasingly heated discussion regarding the impending end of Windows 10. Are Windows 11's hardware requirements all about security or just a sales ploy in disguise?…