TheRegister
HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls
HP is trying to force consumer PC and print customers to use digital support channels by setting a minimum 15-minute wait time for anyone that phones the call center to get answers to troublesome queries.…
UK tax authority eyes £880M overhaul for Northern Ireland trade services
The UK's tax collector is looking for a tech supplier to take on a £370 million, seven-year contract to support a digital platform and call center to handle trading arrangements over the Northern Ireland border.…
Two arrested after pensioner scammed out of six-figure crypto nest egg
Two men are in police custody after being arrested in connection with a July cryptocurrency fraud involving a man in his seventies.…
Dark mode might be burning more juice than you think
Using apps and websites in dark mode can actually use more energy than standard mode, according to researchers, as it causes people to crank up the brightness.…
DXC paid 50% more than original contract value for disastrous public sector Oracle project
Systems integrator DXC accrued over 50 percent more than its original contract value for completing less than half the scheduled contract term during a disastrous project to move a UK government body off an ageing SAP ERP system and onto Oracle Fusion.…
Ghost ransomware crew continues to haunt IT depts with scarily bad infosec
The operators of Ghost ransomware continue to claim victims and score payments, but keeping the crooks at bay is possible by patching known vulnerabilities and some basic infosec actions, according to a joint advisory issued Wednesday by the FBI and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.…
Medusa ransomware gang demands $2M from UK private health services provider
Exclusive HCRG Care Group, a private health and social services provider, has seemingly fallen victim to the Medusa ransomware gang, which is threatening to leak what's claimed to be stolen internal records unless a substantial ransom is paid.…
A big AI build has ‘stalled’ and won’t happen this year as funds and GPUs prove elusive
Big Tech’s plans to spend hundreds of billions on infrastructure during 2025 are often considered to demonstrate near-endless demand for artificial intelligence, but networking vendor Arista has just revealed a large AI build has “stalled” due to lack of funds and hardware.…
France tops China’s tokamak record with 22-minute plasma containment run
France’s Commissariat à L'énergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives on Tuesday claimed it’s topped China’s recently-established for record maintaining fusion plasma in a tokamak, and therefore taken another step towards building a fusion reactor capable of producing cheap energy.…
US Army soldier linked to Snowflake extortion rampage admits breaking the law
A US Army soldier suspected of hacking AT&T and Verizon has admitted leaking online people's private call records.…
Trump can't quickly or easily kill the CHIPS Act, but he can fire the workers funded by it
Comment US President Donald Trump has made it plain he’s not a fan of the $53 billion CHIPS and Science Act that funds semiconductor manufacturing and research on American soil – and now it appears he’s decided to make substantial staff cuts at the agencies that administer it.…
Trump’s DoD CISO pick previously faced security clearance suspension
Donald Trump's nominee for a critical DoD cybersecurity role sports a resume that outshines many of his past picks, despite previously suspended security clearance.…
Microsoft shows off novel quantum chip that can scale to 'a million qubits'. So far: Eight
Microsoft says it has developed a quantum-computing chip made with novel materials that is expected to enable the development of quantum computers for meaningful, real-world applications within – you guessed it – years rather than decades.…
Check out this free automated tool that hunts for exposed AWS secrets in public repos
A free automated tool that lets anyone scan public GitHub repositories for exposed AWS credentials has been released.…
We meet the protesters who want to ban Artificial General Intelligence before it even exists
Feature On Saturday at the Silverstone Cafe in San Francisco, a smattering of activists gathered to discuss plans to stop the further advancement of artificial intelligence.…
Want to play billionaire for a day? This app lets you rent your own armed goon squad
Need to turn heads and burn cash while out on the town? A new app lets you hire armed bodyguards to escort you around - chauffeur included - provided you're in Los Angeles or New York City.…
KDE Plasma 6.3 released – and 6.3.1 is already here
KDE Plasma 6.3 is here, closely followed by a point release, alongside new versions of the KDE Frameworks and KDE Gear apps collection.…
Microsoft researchers promise entire game worlds made from AI slop
Researchers have produced a generative AI tool they say can create a three-dimensional game world to help developers design and tweak gameplay.…
Telco to open lab to test cell network interoperability with satellites
Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile plan to open a research hub this summer to test and validate the integration of orbital services with terrestrial cellphone networks.…
Your days of driver sync via Windows Server Update Services are numbered
Microsoft has issued administrators a 60-day warning – driver synchronization using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will be deprecated.…