And was saved by an even worse meltdown caused by someone else
Who, Me? Welcome to another working week and therefore another installment of Who, Me? – The Register's reader-contributed column where you confess to making a mess and somehow find safe egress.…
Also points to important markets among the 300 million people who will soon work as delivery riders or influencers
Huawei’s chairman Xu Zhijun – aka Eric Xu – has called out China’s enormous lead in fiber-to-the-room (FTTR) installations.…
PLUS: India tries to untangle TXT marketing opt-ins; China’s AI crackdown succeeds; Australia and Boeing team AWACS, drones; and more!
Asia In Brief Chinese web giant Baidu last week staged a livestream hosted by an AI version of local influencer Yonghao Luo and scored 13 million hits and $7.5 million of sales.…
PLUS: 5.4M healthcare records leak; AI makes Spam harder to spot; Many nasty Linux vulns; and more
Infosec in brief A former US Army sergeant has admitted he attempted to sell classified data to China.…
Tesla finally did the damn thing. The company launched its hotly anticipated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22nd — and we’re now starting to see some of the first reactions roll in. But first, we have to get a few important caveats out of the way. Tellingly, the service is not open to […]
OpenAI has scrubbed mentions of io, the hardware startup co-founded by famous Apple designer Jony Ive, from its website and social media channels. The sudden change closely follows their recent announcement of OpenAI’s nearly $6.5 billion acquisition and plans to create dedicated AI hardware. OpenAI tells The Verge the deal is still happening, but it […]
Andru Marino is an audio and video producer at The Verge. “I make videos on our YouTube / TikTok / Instagram channels, and have produced our podcasts like Vergecast, Decoder, and Why’d You Push That Button?” He also keeps a lot of notes, and his latest favorite places to keep them are the Triangle and […]
Monotype is keen for you to know what AI might do in typography. As one of the largest type design companies in the world, Monotype owns Helvetica, Futura, and Gill Sans - among 250,000 other fonts. In the typography giant's 2025 Re:Vision trends report, published in February, Monotype devotes an entire chapter to how AI […]
Turn out the lights, the internet is over
Google AI Overviews and other AI search services appear to be starving the hand that fed them.…
I jumped on the smartwatch bandwagon a bit late, but now I can’t go a day without mine. Beyond delivering helpful notifications, it’s perfect for setting timers, tracking workouts, and monitoring my sleeping habits (which are terrible). If you haven’t yet joined the smartwatch party or you’re looking to upgrade, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 is […]
The Final Fantasy Magic: The Gathering set is here, and there's never been a more perfect assemblage of Magic cards. The set features cards taken from every mainline Final Fantasy title, including the two MMOs, so there's something for every generation of Final Fantasy lovers. And while Magic has featured other video game crossovers in […]
Amazon’s mega sale is nearly upon us. This year, Prime Day will kick off on July 8th and run through July 11th, which, for those counting, is twice as long as previous years. Most everything else will likely be the same — well, aside from Amazon’s so-called “Today’s Big Deals” feature — making it a […]
I wouldn't have preordered a Nintendo Switch 2 just for myself. The price is high, there's no new Smash Bros. or Metroid Prime (yet), and I've got a perfectly good original Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck that keep me plenty busy. At first, I could only justify the $450 because I write about gaming tech […]
The music industry's nightmare came true in 2023, and it sounded a lot like Drake. "Heart on My Sleeve," a convincingly fake duet between Drake and The Weeknd, racked up millions of streams before anyone could explain who made it or where it came from. The track didn't just go viral - it broke the […]
The future of the internet will be determined in one building in Washington, DC - and for six weeks, I watched it unfold. For much of this spring, the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in downtown Washington, DC, was buzzing with lawyers, reporters, and interested onlookers jostling between dimly lit courtrooms that hosted everyone from the […]
Skull emoji knife emoji moneybag emoji
Seven people, including a 14-year-old, have been arrested or surrendered to Danish authorities after allegedly using encrypted messaging apps to hire other teenagers for contract killings in what Europol calls a "violence-as-a-service" operation.…
At this point, it's becoming easier to say which AI startups Mark Zuckerberg hasn't looked at acquiring. In addition to Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence (SSI), sources tell me the Meta CEO recently discussed buying ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab and Perplexity, the AI-native Google rival. None of these talks progressed to the formal […]
Don’t trust mystery digits popping up in your search bar
Scammers are hijacking the search results of people needing 24/7 support from Apple, Bank of America, Facebook, HP, Microsoft, Netflix, and PayPal in an attempt to trick victims into handing over personal or financial info, according to Malwarebytes senior director of research Jérôme Segura.…
Welcome to bill shock, AI style
Microsoft's GitHub this week said paying GitHub Copilot customers will now face monthly limits on certain types of high-powered AI requests, and will have to pay more if they want to surpass those limits.…
While it wasn't the first film to feature fast-moving ghouls, there is no denying how much of an impact 28 Days Later had on modern zombie movies. It was a gripping and nauseating wonder, whose action felt uniquely visceral thanks, in part, to director Danny Boyle's inspired use of a digital video camera. And there […]
'The selected vendor must be willing to receive consideration that is primarily non-monetary,' says the USPTO
The US Patent and Trademark Office is exploring a plan for using AI at the agency to speed up the process of granting patents - but its initial request for information says that vendors should expect to be paid in exposure rather than cold, hard cash.…
DataFusion and WarehousePG meant to deal with AI-related workloads, not to compete with analytics data platforms
PostgreSQL exponent EDB has enhanced its new data platform, claiming this will help bring transactional, analytical, and AI workloads into a single environment.…
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck...
Aflac is the latest insurance company to disclose a security breach following a string of others earlier this week, all of which appear to be part of Scattered Spider's most recent data theft campaign.…
If you’ve been curious about trying out a Mac for the first time or need a small computer powerful enough to be your home media server, we strongly recommend the latest Mac Mini. Thankfully, the step-up M4 model with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM is on sale at Amazon and B&H Photo for […]
It's a marketing move to lure more affiliates, says infosec veteran
The latest marketing ploy from the ransomware crooks behind the Qilin operation involves offering affiliates access to a crack team of lawyers to ramp up pressure in ransom negotiations.…
Applebee’s and IHOP plan to launch an AI-powered “personalization engine” that could help its restaurants provide recommendations and customized deals, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The personalization engine would use a customer’s past purchases — or the orders of customers similar to them — to make recommendations. Justin Skelton, the chief […]
French satellite operator plans capital raise backed by state and key investors including Bharti
Satellite biz Eutelsat is looking to raise €1.35 billion ($1.55 billion) to grow its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network to take on Starlink and benefit from anticipated growth in demand for connectivity.…
Q1 revenue jumps to $11.7B, with 400 and 800 GbE driving the spike
The long-dormant market for datacenter network switches is booming thanks to AI.…
X11 is very far from dead – no matter if some want it to be
Comment Considerable new activity is happening both in the established X.org X11 server and around its new fork, Xlibre.…
Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and in 2025 it’s even longer than usual. It’s running from July 8th through the 11th. The four-day shopping affair will grant Prime members access to some of the best prices of the year on […]
... And then promptly deletes comment. Optimism or an opportunity? Or perhaps both
French cloud business, OVHcloud, claimed yesterday that it is in discussions with the European Commission (EC) regarding a possible migration to a sovereign cloud – in an X post that has since been deleted.…
Seizures up 830% since 2021, with devices linked to interference in emergency responses
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is concerned about the rate at which outlawed signal-jamming devices are being found across the US.…
Amazon released a new software update for several recent Kindle models last week. The company’s release notes only mention “performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements,” but the update includes notable upgrades when it comes to adjusting text and line spacing, improving legibility and accessibility for many users, as spotted by The eBook Reader. […]
Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Family Safety feature, primarily used by parents and schools as a set of parental controls and filters, started randomly blocking Google’s Chrome browser from opening on Windows. The first reports surfaced on June 3rd, with some Chrome users noticing the browser kept closing or wouldn’t open. Microsoft has introduced a bug […]
Tesla has begun sending out invitations for its highly anticipated robotaxi service, but there’s one significant caveat: it’s installing a “safety monitor” in the front passenger seat, as previously reported by Electrek. The invites, which were sent to Tesla influencers and investors, say the human monitor will “accompany you on your trip” when rides begin […]
The idea behind Trump Mobile is relatively straightforward. It's easy to launch a mobile carrier these days, and it can be extremely lucrative - just ask Ryan Reynolds! You should know, though, that Trump Mobile is a pretty bad deal. And the network's supposed flagship phone? We're willing to bet that this $500, made-in-America, coming-soon […]
Meta is announcing its next pair of smart glasses with Oakley. The limited-edition Oakley Meta HSTN (pronounced “how-stuhn”) model costs $499 and is available for preorder starting July 11th. Other Oakley models with Meta’s tech will be available starting at $399 later this summer. Like the existing Meta Ray-Ban glasses, the Oakley model features a […]
VCF bundle is worth it if you make the most of every part, says CTO
Customers dismayed by Broadcom's move to selling costly bundles such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) will realize its value if they'd just use more of the components, the company's CTO says.…
Join any Zoom call, walk into any lecture hall, or watch any YouTube video, and listen carefully. Past the content and inside the linguistic patterns, you'll find the creeping uniformity of AI voice. Words like "prowess" and "tapestry," which are favored by ChatGPT, are creeping into our vocabulary, while words like "bolster," "unearth," and "nuance," […]
What about notebooks, including AI-ready devices? Ah well, still months to go, eh Microsoft
With fewer than four months before Microsoft pulls the plug on standard support for Windows 10, businesses are replacing dusty – but in some cases perfectly working – desktop PCs in preparation for the migration to the little loved next generation of the Windows OS.…
Astro Bot is filled with whimsy and silliness that makes you want to pay attention to the details. But in a presentation at this year's Game Developers Conference, director Nicolas Doucet shared one particular aspect of Astro the robot that I hadn't noticed but blew me away. Doucet talked about how Team Asobi worked hard […]
The Acer Swift 14 is all over AI the place. It has powerful chip options, exceptional battery life, and loads of ports for such a portable laptop. The keyboard and trackpad are solid, which is not always a given at any price. But the screen and webcam are mediocre, and the speakers are outright terrible. […]
Last week, a Tesla Model Y with the word "ROBOTAXI" scratched into its side and no one in the driver seat made a turn off Austin's bustling South Congress Avenue. Another Tesla, described by autonomous vehicle experts as a "chase vehicle," followed closely behind. Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on the clip, seemingly confirming that […]
Third-party provider pledges to support legacy ERP until 2040
Enterprise software support specialist Rimini Street has announced that it will continue to support SAP's ECC 6.0 until 2040, more than ten years after the German vendor plans to retire support for the legacy ERP platform.…
Services coming back online after legacy systems compromised
Oxford City Council says a cyberattack earlier this month resulted in 21 years of data being compromised.…
Framework agreement may rescue some unis from 'financial abyss' after Oracle per-employee Java license, says insider
Exclusive Oracle requested Java audits with UK higher education institutions leading up to the negotiation of a national framework agreement — set to be worth up to £9.86 million ($13.33 million) — which aims to save the institutions £45 million when compared to standard commercial pricing.…
'Black side down,' Lego style
Lego has released another NASA-themed set; this time, a version of the US space agency's Boeing 747-based Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with a Space Shuttle perched on top.…
Sometimes the 'R' in RTFM stands for 'Remember'
On Call The trek through the working week can be long and tiring, which is why The Register always offers a little Friday morning refresher in the form of On Call – the reader-contributed column in which you share tech support stories.…
Probe into how to implement social media ban finds privacy risks, developer overreach, infosec uncertainties
Australia’s trial of age assurance technology has found it’s up to the task of preventing children under 16 years of age from using social media, despite many problems.…
Regulator remains concerned about election integrity
Elections at troubled regional internet registry the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) will continue, after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN’s) attempt to appoint new officials to oversee the poll failed.…
Expects Huawei to start exporting AI chips soon, creating global fight for tech stack dominance
China’s AI and chipmaking prowess lags the USA’s by just two years, and America’s efforts to slow its progress could be hobbling its own semiconductor industry, according to Trump administration tech czar David Sacks.…
Fujitsu picked to build system using 'MONAKA-X' CPUs
Fujitsu has bagged the contract to design Japan's next-gen supercomputer to succeed the Fugaku system, and it looks set to be another Arm-based behemoth, using a CPU derived from its upcoming MONAKA datacenter silicon.…
Baseball, apple pie, and assisted programming
US-based software developers are the world's most prolific users of AI coding assistants, a trend that researchers believe has national economic implications.…
Late Wednesday night at about 11PM CT, SpaceX was about to perform a static fire test of Ship 36, ahead of a planned 10th flight test for its Starship, when there was suddenly a massive explosion at the Massey’s Testing Center site. SpaceX says “A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the […]
Adobe has a new computational photography camera app for iPhones – and one of its creators, Marc Levoy, helped make the impressive computational photography features that made some of Google’s earlier Pixel cameras shine. The new app, called Project Indigo, was released last week by Adobe Labs. It’s free and available for the iPhone 12 […]
To stop AI scam callers, break automatic speech recognition systems
Researchers based in Israel and India have developed a defense against automated call scams.…
We’ve been waiting for Spotify’s lossless streaming for more than four years, but there are some new and promising hints that the feature might finally arrive sometime soon. The X account for Spicetify, a command-line tool that lets you customize the Spotify client, says that a new version of Spotify includes some hidden mentions of […]
FrontPage Remote Procedure Call and others set to be blocked in the name of 'Secure by Default'
Microsoft has warned administrators that legacy authentication protocols will be blocked by default from July, meaning that anyone who hasn't made preparations already could be in for a busy summer.…
Now that warmer weather is here, spring cleaning duties are likely falling by the wayside. But the good news is you can enjoy the outdoors and clean your home with zero effort by letting a robot vacuum do the hard work for you. For that, we recommend a versatile model like the Eufy X10 Pro Omni, which is […]
The bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign are already pretty tough. But if you’ve gotten good and need a harder challenge, you’ll be able to take on “Everdark Sovereigns,” which are more difficult versions of the game’s Nightlord foes you face to conclude a run. “These limited-time versions of the Nightlords are extremely challenging and pose […]
Case over bundling Play Store with Chrome and Google Search set to continue
A European court has advised [PDF] that Google's appeal against a ruling that found it had abused its market dominance should be dismissed.…
Feds told they can't demand a haystack to find a needle
The United States is requesting [PDF] a month-long extension to the deadline for its final decision regarding an appeal against a judge's ruling that obtaining tower dumps is unconstitutional.…
Midjourney has released the first version of its video generation model to the public. For now, the tool can generate short videos based on images uploaded or created on the platform, but Midjourney plans on rolling out more capabilities in the future. After creating an image using Midjourney, the service will show a new “animate” […]
For the third time, President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok to spin out from its Chinese parent company or face a US ban. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a statement Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday extending the deadline another 90 days, landing the new deadline […]
Beyond the selfies between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and the friendly conversations between the pair on stage, all is not well with Microsoft's $13 billion AI investment. Over the past year, multiple reports have painted a picture of a Microsoft and OpenAI relationship that is straining under pressure. As OpenAI […]
The Department of Justice reported yesterday that it filed a civil complaint to seize roughly $225.3 million in cryptocurrency linked to crypto investment scams. In a press release, the DOJ said it traced and targeted accounts that were “part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network” dispersing funds taken from more than 400 suspected victims […]
Sluggish Wi-Fi is one of my least favorite tech problems to deal with because it messes with everything: my work, my smart lightbulbs, my online sessions of Mario Kart World. There are many reasons your Wi-Fi may be wonky, but the good news is that you can solve many of them with better routers. One […]
Observatory maps datacenter hubs and power demand worldwide
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has unveiled an online platform to closely monitor and analyze the impact of AI across the energy sector worldwide.…
With FBC: Firebreak, Remedy Entertainment has entered the world of the first-person co-op shooter. Set in its Control universe - specifically the site of the first game, the brutalist nightmare office called the Oldest House - players control a member of the titular three-person team of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), tasked with addressing […]
Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new pair of headphones, an OLED TV, or a laptop just to find out that you could have gotten it for a lot cheaper somewhere else. That’s why, in order to keep customers happy and prevent them from going elsewhere, many retailers offer price-matching policies in which they […]
Experts note 'major red flags' in donut giant's security as 161,676 staff and families informed of attack details
Krispy Kreme finally revealed the number of people affected by its November cyberattack, and it's easy to see why analyzing the incident took the well-resourced company several months.…
Valve is introducing accessibility features for players with disabilities in its latest beta for Steam Big Picture Mode and SteamOS. The features — listed in full and explained here — include options to modify the Steam UI, like a high contrast mode, as well as a built-in screen reader for SteamOS. In its post, Valve describes the […]
At a recent exhibition in Copenhagen, visitors stepped into a dark room and were met by an unusual host: a jaguar that watched the crowd, selected individuals, and began to share stories about her daughter, her rainforest, and the fires that once threatened her home - the Bolivian Amazon. The live interaction with Huk, an […]
Veteran X-ray telescope discovery shows that... phew, current model of the cosmos still works
Astronomers have found a filament of hot gas, ten times as massive as our galaxy, that they reckon could explain where at least some of the universe's "missing" matter might be lurking.…
Summer Game Fest 2025 was definitely a weird one, but even with everything going on outside, the games on display were still immaculate. My favorites, the ones that I live for, are small, unique, and made for pure love of expression. Being able to see that love so clearly on display, expressed through such painstaking […]
Good to see government that values its academics (cough cough). Plus: New board criticized for lacking 'ops' people
Cybersecurity experts have started a formal review into the UK cybersecurity market, at the government's request, to identify future growth opportunities as it looks to grow the industry that's core to the country's Industrial Strategy.…
Test fire trouble means Musk's rocketeers reset the 'days since Starship had a major anomaly' counter to zero
SpaceX has made excellent progress with its Starship rocket. The stainless steel vehicle can now explode before even leaving the Earth.…
Probably the easiest way to a Google-free smartphone or tablet
Murena's /e/ OS is arguably the most mainstream de-Googled Android OS, and the new version catches up with important features.…
Startup has already shown how to make drugs in space
America's aviation regulator has issued its first license for unmanned spacecraft to reenter the Earth's atmosphere to Varda, a startup that's trying to build a space-based manufacturing business.…
Illegal products abound on Chinese site and its processes to stop ‘em are hopeless
The European Commission has found Chinese e-tail giant AliExpress in breach of its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products as required under the Digital Services Act (DSA).…
Phishing, Python and RATs, oh my
A sneaky malware campaign slithers through Cloudflare tunnel subdomains to execute in-memory malicious code and give unknown attackers long-term access to pwned machines.…
‘Windows 365 Reserve’ will be usable ten days a year for undisclosed fee
Microsoft has announced a preview of “Windows 365 Reserve”, a service that provides pre-configured cloud PCs it suggests as ideal when physical machines aren’t usable.…
Bank and crypto outfits hit after Israeli commander mentioned attacks expanding to ‘other areas’
The government of Iran appears to have shut down the internet within its borders, perhaps in response to Israel-linked cyberattacks.…
$650M funding round aims to bring TerraPower's Natrium power plant in Wyoming online by 2030
Datacenter operators’ desire for cheap and clean energy to power their facilities has led to renewed interest in nuclear energy and small modular reactors (SMRs) – a tech Nvidia has just decided is worthy of investment.…
Move fast and blow things up
Silicon Valley-backed weapons maker Anduril and German armaments biz Rheinmetall have signed a deal to see US-designed drones and missiles integrated into European military platforms.…
EEG and recall tests suggest people who use ChatGPT to write essays aren't learning much
Using AI chatbots actually reduces activity in the brain versus accomplishing the same tasks unaided, and may lead to poorer fact retention, according to a new preprint study out of MIT.…
Infostealers posing as popular cheat tools are cropping up on GitHub
Trojanized Minecraft cheat tools hosted on GitHub have secretly installed stealers that siphon credentials, crypto wallets, and other sensitive data when executed by players.…
New MCP server was shut down for nearly two weeks
Asana has fixed a bug in its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that could have allowed users to view other organizations' data, and the experimental feature is back up and running after nearly two weeks of downtime to fix the issue.…
After watching writer / director Eliza McNitt's new short film Ancestra, I can see why a number of Hollywood studios are interested in generative AI. A number of the shots were made and refined solely with prompts, in collaboration with Google's DeepMind team. It's obvious what Darren Aronofsky's AI-focused Primordial Soup production house and Google […]
In case you forgot AI isn't the only thing GPUs are good for
Exclusive Support for AMD's Instinct GPUs is coming to Voltron Data's accelerated SQL engine Theseus in the latest sign Nvidia's CUDA moat is getting shallower.…
YouTube is bringing its Veo 3 AI video generation model, which my colleague Allison Johnson recently called “a slop monger’s dream,” to YouTube Shorts later this summer, according to a Cannes Lions keynote from YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. Shorts creators can already take advantage of the previous-generation Veo 2 model to generate backgrounds with Dream […]
Sec Def Hegseth says funds better spent elsewhere, because it's not like the military needs new tech, right?
A federal judge has temporarily blocked an attempt by the Department of Defense to cut funding for university research programs, perhaps inadvertently saving the DoD from an own-goal.…
The strange world of Death Stranding just keeps on expanding. As Deadline reports, Hideo Kojima’s ghostly, post-apocalyptic video game is getting a spinoff in the form of an animated film. While there aren’t a lot of details yet, the animated feature will supposedly be in the same mold as other animated spinoffs like the recent […]
The Nintendo Switch 2 is more expensive in practically every way: pricier console, pricier games, an entire Chat button you'll eventually have to pay to use. So it was nice when Nintendo revealed you won't need its own $55 camera to video chat with pals. "You can use the Nintendo Switch 2 camera accessory (sold […]
Facebook is adding support for passkeys on its mobile app. That means you’ll be able to log into the platform using your device’s authentication method, like your fingerprint, face scan, or PIN, making it more difficult for bad actors to take control of your account. Passkeys offer a more secure alternative to typical passwords because […]
The richest and most customizable desktop for FOSS Unix
The second of three KDE point releases planned for 2025 is here, with more tiling options, accessibility improvements, and much more.…
AI tools are flooding the culture ecosystem — and no corner of the arts space is immune. In this series, we’re looking at the ways artists are embracing AI, pushing back on it, or trying their best to find an equilibrium with a new technology that’s both sweeping and destabilizing. We talk to perfumers questioning […]
