Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer now known for his science-focused stunts he publishes to more than 70 million subscribers on YouTube, will launch a competition show on Netflix in 2026. Rober will also bring “some of his most beloved, ambitious, and informative experiments to Netflix later this year,” Netflix says. The Wall Street Journal […]

Few brands are as synonymous with outdoor sports as Garmin. You’ll find these fitness trackers and smartwatches on dozens of wrists at any 5K, marathon, or Ironman. You’ll also find Garmin devotees among divers, thru-hikers, golfers, kiteboarders — you name it. But these devices aren’t just for athletes. The company’s made significant strides in its […]

Google has announced that users of the US and UK versions of the 3rd gen Nest Learning Thermostat and the Nest Thermostat E can now schedule temperature adjustments using the Google Home app. Newer versions of the Nest thermostats already allow you to manually set schedules in the Home app, but those older models required […]

Two years ago we learned, thanks to the FTC, that Microsoft was working on a separate “dedicated” version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft Gaming CFO Tim Stuart then hinted, a few months later, that there could be a free version Xbox Cloud Gaming in exchange for ads. Now, Microsoft is hinting at making Xbox Cloud […]

A plan to standardize IT record keeping is incomplete after 8 years, and the GAO wants someone to act

The US federal government first planned to standardize its categorization of IT costs, resources, and solutions back in 2017. Eight years later, the project has mostly stalled, say auditors, and now they're demanding that it either get priority or get the axe.…

Roblox is updating its policies prohibiting romantic or sexual content to also forbid “content, settings, or behavior that implies sexual activity,” according to a Friday post from chief safety officer Matt Kaufman (emphasis Kaufman’s). The changes follow recent lawsuits against the company, including one from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill that alleges the platform creates […]

Prime Video has released new photos from season two of Fallout. Lucy (Ella Purnell), the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), and Maximus (Aaron Moten) return as a trio of Wasteland Wanderers whose adventures will bring them to the post-apocalyptic playground of New Vegas. Take a look. Kyle MacLachlan, who plays Lucy’s father Hank, also returns to the […]

Just two weeks after raising the prices of its cameras by up to $800, Fujifilm is warning customers about another increase for US customers. In a statement provided to DPReview, the Japanese company says it will “further adjust prices” as it contends with “volatile market conditions.” The change will go into effect on August 30th, […]

Surprise – updated plans way more expensive than initially suggested

AWS has introduced new pricing for Kiro, its AI-driven coding tool, but unlike the pricing originally announced, the latest plans are "a wallet-wrecking tragedy," according to many of its users.…

Supply chain breach has been a major target of legal action

Microsoft-owned talk-to-text outfit Nuance has agreed to cough up $8.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit over the sprawling MOVEit Transfer mega-breach – although it admits no liability.…

Welcome to Decoder! This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. I’ve had a lot of fun guest-hosting a few episodes of Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave this summer. If you listened to the last couple of Monday shows, you know I’ve been doing […]

Some people rarely lose things. Wallets are always exactly where they’re supposed to be, keys never go missing, and remotes never slip between the couch cushions. And then there’s the rest of us — the folks who can’t ever seem to find the thing that was right there a few seconds ago. For us, there […]

P2P power networks beat stingy feed-in tariffs for Aussie households, study finds

Boffins looking into the Australian solar energy ecosystem say that sharing really is caring – and potentially profitable when homes with solar panels can sell their excess energy to neighbors at a preferential rate.…

If you’re interested in a long-lasting smartwatch, and like to stay within Apple’s hardware ecosystem, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the best choice. It’s Apple’s most durable, longest-lasting smartwatch, and it’s currently on sale for $649.99 ($150 off), an all-time low price at Amazon and Best Buy. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes in […]

HR SaaS giant insists core systems untouched

Workday has admitted that attackers gained access to one of its third-party CRM platforms, but insists its core systems and customer tenants are untouched.…

Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot can now end conversations deemed “persistently harmful or abusive,” as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. The capability is now available in Opus 4 and 4.1 models, and will allow the chatbot to end conversations as a “last resort” after users repeatedly ask it to generate harmful content despite multiple refusals and attempts […]

MSNBC is about to look a lot — and sound — a lot different. The cable news network will soon go by My Source News Opinion World (MS NOW) and drop its peacock logo, according to a report from Deadline. The change comes as Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, plans to spin off its cable business, […]

If at first you succeed, keep trying until you don't

SpaceX is gearing up for another Starship launch, blaming a previous failure on structural issues and fuel pressurization problems.…

The Fan Edition Galaxy Buds 3 have ditched the blob for a stemmed design popularized by Apple and found in Samsung’s higher end Galaxy Buds 3 models launched last year. The Galaxy Buds 3 FE arrive with improved sound, enhanced active noise cancellation, and IP54 resistance to dust and rain, according to Samsung. For music, […]

Grammarly is launching several new AI agents for specific writing challenges, from educators trying to detect plagiarism and AI-generated text to students looking to gauge reader reaction to their paper, needing help with citations, and even seeing their predicted grade. The specialized AI agents are available in docs — which is Grammarly’s new “AI-native writing […]

Virtual agents to guide citizens through red tape – but not remove any of it

The UK government has leapt into the AI hype with a raft of "Exemplar" programs it claims will deliver billions in value – including a Clippy-style assistant to help citizens navigate complex forms and legal jargon, rather than simply making them clearer in the first place.…

During the last half month, we've covered a lot of interesting gadgets and apps and thought we'd highlight a few that caught our attention the most. For example, we have a robovac that can mop the edges of your walls (something that my manual mop usually fails at), a charging cable that with any luck […]

Agency swears breaches are rare, just not rare enough to stop 186 being binned for sticky fingers

The UK tax authority has been forced to clean house after dozens of staff were caught helping themselves to taxpayer records.…

Sni5Gect research crew targets sweet spot during device / network handshake pause

Security boffins have released an open source tool for poking holes in 5G mobile networks, claiming it can do up- and downlink sniffing and a novel connection downgrade attack - plus "other serious exploits" they're keeping under wraps, for now.…

When you're asking AI chatbots for answers, they're data-mining you

Opinion  Recently, OpenAI ChatGPT users were shocked – shocked, I tell you! – to discover that their searches were appearing in Google search. You morons! What do you think AI chatbots are doing? Doing all your homework for free or a mere $20 a month? I think not!…

Microsoft first introduced a dark mode option in Windows 10 in 2016, but there were still plenty of areas of the operating system that looked like a mish-mash of light and dark modes. Nearly a decade later, the latest preview build of Windows 11 now includes even more darkened UI elements. Windows watcher Phantomofearth spotted […]

The official GNU microkernel is still breathing – and now it's 64-bit

Before Linux, GNU was working on its own Mach-based Unix compatible OS. Now, in the footsteps of Debian 13, there is a new release.…

Visions of immortality are uniformly dull. But this is gonna get ugly

Opinion  Real versus virtual. Stolen versus synthesized. Generative AI is blurring the lines we used to think we could read between. Now, it's getting its teeth into life versus death. …

The real lesson here is how little some companies care about training

Who, Me?  Welcome to Monday and another instalment of Who, Me? It’s The Register’s reader-contributed column in which you admit to mistakes and reveal if they derailed your career.…

If you wanted to hurt Putin’s ransomware racketeers, these info-stealing npm packages are one way to do it

Researchers at software supply chain security outfit Safety think they’ve found malware that targets Russian cryptocurrency developers, and perhaps therefore Russia’s state-linked ransomware crews…

Vidchat hosts probably know Otter.ai records everything and feeds it into AI. Their guests may not

Voice transcription service Otter.ai has found itself on the wrong end of a lawsuit that claims it trains its speech recognition tech without securing permission to do so.…

Prime Minister promises first local silicon will appear this year, decades after Fairchild Semi's Robert Noyce made polite inquiries

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has celebrated the nation’s independence day by pointing out that the nation is finally becoming a global chipmaking contender – 60 years after blowing the chance to be a global leader.…

PLUS: Philippines bans gambling payments; Indonesia warns Roblox; China lures young scientists; And more!

Asia In Brief  Google on Monday admitted to anticompetitive conduct in its dealings with Australian telcos.…

PLUS: Kryptos solution up for auction; Canadian parliament springs a leak; Fake crypto lawyers; And more

Infosec In Brief  New York State is suing bank-owned peer-to-peer payment app Zelle, claiming that the banks behind it knew fraud was rampant on the platform but allowed scammers to conduct business with impunity.…

In a recent episode of Post Games, host Chris Plante explores how video games can help players understand death. He's interviewing Kaitlin Tremblay, who is working on Ambrosia Sky, a game about death. "What is it about games that is so useful for exploring the topic?" Plante asks. "I think there's something really lovely about […]

How it started I carry a lot of different phones around, and I rarely get questions about them because most people stopped talking about which phone they own around 2017. I could be using an unreleased iPhone 18 Pro Max Air Ultra to pay for my coffee and nobody would raise an eyebrow (present company […]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 94, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, did you hydrate today, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I'm visiting LinkedIn way too much because of Mini Sudoku, looking at the […]

The non-profit has a new look but still stands up for the open web

interview  The Mozilla Foundation has changed its look, but its goals remain the same – supporting an internet that's open and inclusive, and that prioritizes the interests of people over corporations.…

Handy tool for when only a dedicated device will do

hands on  Timekettle's lightweight T1 interpreter has received the AI treatment and will now perform offline translations. But unless you have deep enough pockets, both figuratively and literally, for another device and a frequent need for translation, it's not for you.…

'Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,' one tells The Reg

Feature  Bill Gates, an Arizona election official and former Maricopa County supervisor, says that the death threats started shortly after the 2020 presidential election.…

Some people like to stay on the cutting edge of technology. If that’s you, you already know that Google is going to officially unveil its Pixel 10 phones (including a new Fold) during its August 20th event. But if you’re someone who prefers to use these opportunities to save on last-gen tech, you’ve been rewarded […]

Dead Take, the second game from Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, is a quiet horror game where the monster is ambition and the lengths a person will go for stardom. Like a lot of horror games, Dead Take relies on jumpscares to get the heart pumping. But playing this game, my deepest, most […]

At the end of July, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) convened a three-day public hearing to investigate January's mid-air collision over Washington, DC that killed 67 people. After the hearing, two conclusions were inescapable. First, the disaster should have been prevented by existing safety rules. And second, the government regulators responsible for air safety […]

These ten features would make users more productive

OPINION  From desktop alerts begging you to sign up for Xbox Game Pass to a second-chance out-of-the-box experience that insists you need Microsoft 365, Windows has a hard time taking "no" for an answer. The operating system's corporate parent isn't a good listener either, festooning the OS with useless features no one asked for.…

Precogs replaced by profiling and postcode data... and 'AI'. What could wrong? Lots, say pirvacy campaigners

The UK government has unveiled a scheme to use AI to "help police catch criminals before they strike."…

One of the most significant single advancements in telecommunications technology was the development of microwave radio. Essentially an evolution of radar, the middle of the Second World War saw the first practical microwave telephone system.

Nowhere to hide

Codeberg, a Berlin-based code hosting community, is struggling to cope with a deluge of AI bots that can now bypass previously effective defenses.…

For all the power she wields with the White House's affairs, Laura Loomer does not have the traditional tools that her rivals in the MAGA influencer industrial complex have - the highest follower count, the most political power, the most internet platforms, etc. But the fact remains that she's the influencer responsible for getting Donald […]

AI will take your salary in capex before it can take your job

Oracle issued layoff notices for more than 300 people in Washington State and California this week, according to state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings in those states.…

Is that a JuicyPotato on your network?

A suspected Chinese-government-backed cyber crew recently broke into a Taiwanese web hosting provider to steal credentials and plant backdoors for long-term access, using a mix of open-source and custom software tools, Cisco Talos reports.…

Could tinkering with a site’s code to hide ads count as infringement?

A recent ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has reopened the possibility that using ad blocking software could violate copyright law in Germany.…

When one GPU translates into three to five of the fastest switch ports money can buy, can you blame them?

Nvidia is expected to ship somewhere north of 5 million Blackwell GPUs in 2025. But before those GPUs can train the next GPT, Gemini, or Llama, they need to be networked — and that's quickly becoming big business for Ethernet switch vendors like Cisco, Arista, HPE ... and Nvidia itself.…

A large and unfortunate mistake in the kernel development management process is underway

comment  The first release candidate of Linux 6.17 is out, without any bcachefs changes… but not for any technical reasons. This is bad.…

The state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, alleging that the company has “permitted and perpetuated an online environment in which child predators thrive, directly contributing to the widespread victimization of minor children in Louisiana.”  Roblox sees more than 111.8 million daily active users, and it’s hugely popular with children, with users under […]

There's a meme currently going around Bluesky where people are posting their first purchases on Steam. Taking a look presents a neat time capsule, offering a glimpse of who we used to be. It also gives us a chance to compare our gaming habits now with what they were 10 or more years ago - […]

Now that Congress has passed a bill that will defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS is taking drastic measures to stay alive. In an email sent out to PBS station managers on Wednesday, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger announced that the organization plans to cut its budget by 21 percent in order to […]

Switchzilla's summer of perfect 10s

Cisco has issued a patch for a maximum-severity bug in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands on vulnerable systems.…

If you’ve ever juggled a phone, a smartwatch, and a pair of wireless earbuds, you know the struggle of keeping them all charged. Rather than go through the process of charging them one by one, a quality charging station can help you manage the chaos and reduce cable clutter. The Anker MagGo Wireless Charging Station […]

The nations of the world have been on the precipice of reaching a global agreement to curb plastic pollution for a few years now. Delegates from 184 governments met in Geneva this month to try to hammer out a final treaty, but in the end, they walked away without a deal. This is not necessarily […]

Anthropic has updated the usage policy for its Claude AI chatbot in response to growing concerns about safety. In addition to introducing stricter cybersecurity rules, Anthropic now specifies some of the most dangerous weapons that people should not develop using Claude. Anthropic doesn’t highlight the tweaks made to its weapons policy in the post summarizing […]

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