TheRegister
Build your own antisocial writing rig with DOS and a $2 USB key
Sometimes, the size and complexity of modern OSes – even the FOSS ones – is enough to make us miss the days when an entire bootable OS could fit in three files, when configuring a PC for production meant editing two plain-text files, which contained maybe a dozen lines each. DOS couldn't do very much, but the little it did was enough. From the early 1980s for a decade or two, much of the world ran on DOS. Then Windows 3 came along, which is arguably the point where the rot set in.…
UK bans game controller exports to Russia in bid to ground drone attacks
The British government is banning the export of video game controllers to Russia, claiming these can be repurposed for piloting drones on the frontline in Ukraine.…
AI-powered 20 foot robots coming for construction workers' jobs
Rise of the machines Construction workers could soon find themselves laboring alongside 20-foot (6 meter) tall AI-powered autonomous robots capable of welding, carpentry, and 3D printing buildings. What could possibly go wrong?…
Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed
Opinion Just when it seems they couldn't be that careless, US officials tasked with defending the nation go and do something else that puts American critical infrastructure, national security, and troops' lives in danger.…
Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member
Kent Landfield, a founding member of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program and member of the board, learned through social media that the system he helped create was just hours away from losing funding.…
More Ivanti attacks may be on horizon, say experts who are seeing 9x surge in endpoint scans
Ivanti VPN users should stay alert as IP scanning for the vendor's Connect Secure and Pulse Secure systems surged by 800 percent last week, according to threat intel biz GreyNoise.…
Oh, cool. Microsoft melts bug that froze Server 2025 Remote Desktop sessions
More than one month after complaints starting flying, Microsoft has fixed a Windows bug that caused some Remote Desktop sessions to freeze.…
Hydrotreated vegetable oil is not an emission-free swap for diesel in datacenters
Datacenter operators are being encouraged to adopt hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as a replacement for diesel in generators, however, analysts say the sustainable stand-in is not emission-free and has its own drawbacks.…
M&S stops online orders as 'cyber incident' issues worsen
Marks & Spencer has paused online orders for customers via its website and app as the UK retailer continues to wrestle with an ongoing "cyber incident."…
Emergency patch for potential SAP zero-day that could grant full system control
SAP's latest out-of-band patch is for a perfect 10/10 bug in NetWeaver that experts suspect could have already been exploited as a zero-day.…
Hubble Space Telescope is still producing science at 35
It was 35 years ago when the Hubble Space Telescope deployed into orbit, sent by a space agency facing an existential crisis. Thirty-five years on, not much seems to have changed.…
Google admits depreciation costs are soaring amid furious bit barn build
Google says the mega capital splurge on datacenters in recent years is putting more strain on its balance sheet due to rising depreciation costs, yet it still plans to splash $75 billion on bit barns in 2025.…
Virgin Atlantic is piloting an OpenAI agent in to help with the 'customer journey'
Interview For all the talk of the "agentic era" from AI vendors like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and just about everyone else in the space, corporate use of the technology is still tentative. Virgin Atlantic has been conducting flight tests of its website with an AI agent called Operator, and early results are promising, pointing the way toward how agents might actually be used to help customers book flights.…
Europe fires up beefier booster for Ariane 6 and Vega-C
A qualification version of the P160C solid-fuel motor was successfully tested at the European Spaceport in French Guiana on April 24, paving the way for heftier payloads on the Ariane 6 and Vega rockets.…
£136M government grant saves troubled Post Office from suboptimal IT
The UK's Post Office would have to cope with suboptimal IT, increased risks and costs, and reduced reporting accuracy if it didn't receive £136 million ($180 million) in government aid to keep its disastrous Horizon system running and replace it with a more modern platform.…
Claims assistance firm fined for cold-calling people who put themselves on opt-out list
Britain's data privacy watchdog has slapped a fine of £90k ($120k) on a business that targeted people with intrusive marketing phone calls, despite them being registered with the official "Do Not Call" opt-out service.…
Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee
On Call By the time Friday morning rolls around, starting the day with a stimulating beverage feels like a fine idea. And so does delivering a freshly brewed installment of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which you share tales of tech support triumph and torture.…
Darcula adds AI to its DIY phishing kits to help would-be vampires bleed victims dry
Darcula, a cybercrime outfit that offers a phishing-as-a-service kit to other criminals, this week added AI capabilities to its kit that help would-be vampires spin up phishing sites in multiple languages more efficiently.…
New Intel boss is all about ‘de-laborating’ the x86 giant – aka, job cuts
Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is swinging the ax again, with another round of layoffs incoming as Chipzilla tries to reboot its core.…
Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks
Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) no longer works with derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor – and some developers are crying foul.…