Tinder is no longer just a platform for solo dates. The company has announced a new “Double Date” feature rolling out in the US that will let you invite a friend to find — and match with – another pair. The feature lives within a new “Double Date” icon in the top-right corner of the […]
DoD says deal covers 'warfighting'. OpenAI merely mentions healthcare and 'supporting proactive cyber defense'
The US Department of Defense has contracted OpenAI to run a pilot program that will create "frontier AI," but it's not clear what they're building together.…
A moment of panic as some customers thought the free tiers were going away
On Monday, Railway, a provider of cloud infrastructure services, decided to throttle software builds by customers in its lowest paying tiers to accommodate unexpected demand for service following the Google Cloud Platform outage last week.…
Last year, Justin Sun was facing a federal investigation into his crypto empire, to the point that he avoided entering the US. Now, his company is going to be publicly listed on the American stock markets – and reportedly with the assistance of Eric Trump. Tron, Sun’s digital assets platform, announced on Monday that it […]
Google threat analysts warn the team behind the Marks & Spencer break-in has moved on
Cyber-crime crew Scattered Spider has infected US insurance companies following a series of ransomware attacks against American and British retailers, according to Google, which urged this sector to be on "high alert."…
No need to plagiarize if you can have AI do it for you
A series of Freedom of Information requests shows that students in British universities are increasingly getting busted for using AI to cheat.…
MAGA MVNO and the gold-plated telephone of destiny
The Trump family is getting into the wireless business - and what better way to do it than with a gold-colored Android smartphone that could someday be designed and manufactured in the USA?…
Nexus Mods, a website known for hosting mods for thousands of PC games, has been handed over to new ownership, according to former owner Robin “Dark0ne” Scott. “After months of meetings, face-to-face talks, and a whole lot of soul searching, I am thrilled to say that I truly believe I have found the exact right […]
Previous additions to Spigen’s Classic C1 series of Apple accessories include iPhone and AirPods cases inspired by the iMac G3’s bright colors. Its new Apple Watch stand goes one step further and recreates the entire design of the iconic computer in miniature so it can fit on your bedside table and charge your smartwatch overnight. […]
Clock speed of 25 kHz means 2D CMOS system won't run Doom quite yet
Gaze into the temporal distance and you might spot the end of the age of silicon looming somewhere out there, as a research team at Penn State University claims to have built the first working CMOS computer entirely from two-dimensional materials.…
The group has previously threatened to SWAT cancer patients and leaked pre-op plastic surgery photos
An extortion gang claims to have breached Freedman HealthCare, a data and analytics firm whose customers include state agencies, health providers, and insurance companies, and is threatening to dump tens of thousands of sensitive files early Tuesday morning.…
Threads is rolling out a test that will let you hide images or text that contain spoilers, according to a post from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. With the test, you’ll be able to blur content by tapping an image or highlighting text and selecting the “mark spoiler” option. Other users can view the hidden content […]
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is a racing event that's been going on since 1916. It's a 12.42-mile run that climbs 4,720 feet and serves as a proving ground for carmakers to test the speed and agility of their new vehicles. Electric cars tend to do well in the Pikes Peak race; they don't […]
For researchers yearning to earn some yen and escape Trump 2.0
Japan is the latest nation hoping to tempt disgruntled US researchers alarmed by the Trump administration's hostile attitude to academia to relocate to the Land of the Rising Sun.…
Reddit is launching a new feature for advertisers that slots positive posts from Reddit users right under their ads. The new alpha feature, called Conversation Summary Add-ons, “dynamically integrates positive content from Reddit users directly below an advertiser’s creative, putting community conversations front-and-center in the user experience and blending AI-driven efficiency with real human perspectives,” […]
Flights still flying - just don't count on the app or website working smoothly
Canadian airline WestJet is warning of "intermittent interruptions or errors" on its app and website as it investigates a cybersecurity incident.…
Patreon has announced an update to its pricing, consolidating its Pro and Premium plans into a single offering starting August 5th. The new plan will take 10 percent of creators’ earnings, rather than the current eight percent for Pro and 12 percent for Premium users. That will mean a price increase for many new users, […]
Trump Mobile launched this morning with a single prepaid wireless plan and the promise of nationwide coverage for $47.45 per month. For that price, you get unlimited talk and texting, international calling, plus 20GB of "high-speed" cell and hotspot data, which a customer support representative told me is 5G. But while the plan's price might […]
Next version to drop Windows 7 through 8.1, and 32-bit Windows support is on the way out, too
The LibreOffice project is preparing to cut some Windows support – and encourages users to switch to Linux.…
Evaluation of latest repairs to Russian segment ongoing
NASA has pushed back the launch of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station (ISS), citing concerns over persistent leaks aboard the aging orbital outpost. A new No Earlier Than (NET) date is set for June 19.…
A company named Fastsnail has won the race when it comes to making a Joy-Con charging accessory that’s better than Nintendo’s and any other third-party maker. Its charging dock can charge the Joy-Con for the original Switch and for the Switch 2. Each charging port can accommodate either the rail-based charging connector of the Switch, […]
Microsoft’s Windows Hello face unlock feature no longer works in dark rooms, and it’s not a bug. Microsoft quietly made the change to Windows Hello in April, in order to fix a vulnerability with Windows Hello spoofing. Fixing the security flaw has now removed key functionality from Windows Hello in Windows 11. Windows Central spotted […]
Here is a roughly complete list of all the things we know for sure about the first phone made for the new Trump Mobile wireless provider: it's called the T1 Phone 8002 (gold version). It costs $499, and you can reserve one now with a $100 down payment. It is, according to the website, coming […]
Hello Where’s Your Ed At Subscribers! I’ve started a premium version of this newsletter with a weekly Friday column where I go over the most meaningful news and give my views, which I guess is what you’d expect.
Marketplace as big as Silk Road had more than 600k users and turnover of 'at least' €250M
Operation Deep Sentinel is the latest international law enforcement collaboration against cybercrime, shutting down Archetyp – one of the largest dark web drug marketplaces.…
WhatsApp is rolling out ads. In an update on Monday, Meta announced that it will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like status feature. The status feature lives within WhatsApp’s “Updates” tab and allows users to share disappearing text, photo, voice notes, or video messages. But now, you might see sponsored content in addition […]
The Trump family is launching a mobile network, Trump Mobile, and a Trump-branded phone, the T1, which they claim will be made in America. Trump Mobile is launching with a single plan called “The 47 Plan” for $47.45 per month, which it says offers the same coverage as the big three carriers. It will work […]
6-in-10 success rate for single-step tasks
A new benchmark developed by academics shows that LLM-based AI agents perform below par on standard CRM tests and fail to understand the need for customer confidentiality.…
Nintendo will offer an early look at Donkey Kong Bananza during a livestream on Wednesday, June 18th at 9AM ET / 6AM PT. The company announced the upcoming Direct event through its Nintendo Today app and on X, saying the livestream will feature 15 minutes of information about the Switch 2 game. Donkey Kong Bananza […]
But lose your code and it's gone for good
Windows 11 users in the European Economic Area will shortly receive a new Recall Export feature, allowing Recall snapshots to be shared with third-party apps and websites.…
As others roll back use of tech due to quality, customers preferring to talk to humans
Not content with a corporate blueprint to cut up to 55,000 employees by 2030, UK telecoms giant BT now says even more staff could be replaced with AI, despite the experience of some orgs that have already tried this.…
Student 'believed he could finish' software dev 'project alone and therefore that the rules did not apply to him'
A former GCHQ intern was jailed for seven-and-a-half years for stealing top-secret files during a year-long placement at the British intelligence agency.…
OnePlus has announced five new products, including a new phone from its popular Nord lineup, which will launch in Europe and India next month. The company will release two phones, a tablet, a smartwatch, and a pair of earbuds, and has already shared a handful of details for each device, though full specs and prices […]
Scandal-hit IT giant said it wouldn't take on new UK.gov contracts or continue bidding on existing ones unless asked
Exclusive The Northern Ireland government did not ask Fujitsu to continue bidding for a £125 million ($167 million) contract, yet the Japanese tech giant to continued to do so, despite promising to quit competing for UK government work during the fallout from the Horizon scandal.…
If you’ve been having flashbacks to 2007 while using your PC over the past few days, you’re not alone. Microsoft has mistakenly replaced Windows 11’s boot sound — in test versions of the OS — with the startup chime from Windows Vista. Windows testers started noticing the issue shortly after Microsoft released its latest Dev […]
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Not a problem with AI hype
Opinion Among the forever wars in geekdom, defining the difference between science fiction and fantasy is a hot potato destined to outlive the heat death of the universe.…
Social media is filled with an endless supply of people selling things, from Shein try-on hauls to health supplement and gadget product placements. Influencer marketing disrupted traditional advertising, creating an army of living room salespeople pumping out content meant to entice strangers at scale — and tech companies’ vision for the future includes more automation. […]
Custom text fields can be a powerful form of protest
Who, Me? The only certainties in life are death, taxes … and tech causing trouble, a topic that The Register covers each week in this reader-contributed column we call “Who, Me?” that celebrates the moments you made trouble at work and somehow escaped.…
Promises operational change - and improvements to customer comms when it crashes
Google Cloud has explained the massive outage it created last week and, as has happened many times previously, admitted that it broke itself.…
German giant wants case heard in Germany, not the USA
German giant Siemens AG has tried to convince a US court to throw out the case in which VMware alleged it used unlicensed software.…
Anker has announced a new version of its wireless sleep buds that could be even more effective at delivering a peaceful slumber by blocking out disturbing noises using active noise cancellation. Previous versions of the Soundcore Sleep earbuds blocked external sounds passively using just a snug fit inside the ear, but the new Sleep A30 […]
PLUS: APNIC completes re-org; India cuts costs for chipmakers; Infosys tax probe ends; and more
Asia In Brief Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) last week announced charges against four suspects for alleged participation in a money-laundering scheme that involved a security company’s armored cash transport unit.…
PLUS: Discord invite links may not be safe; Miscreants find new way to hide malicious JavaScript; and more!
Infosec In Brief A pair of Congressional Democrats have demanded a review of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program amid uncertainties about continued US government funding for the scheme.…
Some people can tell great wine from okay wine. They go on wine tastings, take wine tours. They tend to spend more money on wine than most. I am not one of those people. I can tell wine from vinegar if you show me the bottle. I am just a little bit obsessed with keyboards, […]
The term "endgame," among keyboard enthusiasts, is sort of a running gag. Endgame is when you finally dial in your perfect layout, case, features, switches, and keycaps, so you can stop noodling around with parts and get on with whatever it is you actually use the keyboard for - work, presumably. Then a few months […]
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 87, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy It's Officially Too Hot Now Week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Sabrina Carpenter and Khaby Lame and […]
Academics mull the need for the digital equivalent of low-background steel
Feature For artificial intelligence researchers, the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, changed the world in a way similar to the detonation of the first atomic bomb.…
Microsoft veteran on breaking down numbers at the computer store
Windows 95 will soon turn 30. Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen recalled that when testing Microsoft's reimagining of Windows, an overflow was discovered that had nothing to do with the operating system itself.…
Of all the jarring things I've witnessed on the National Mall, nothing will beat the image of the first thing I saw after I cleared security at the Army festival: a child, sitting at the controls of an M119A3 Howitzer, being instructed by a soldier on how to aim it, as his red-hatted parents took […]
As President Donald Trump kicked off a birthday military parade on the streets of Washington, DC, what's estimated as roughly 2,000 events were held across the US and beyond - protesting Trump and Elon Musk's evisceration of government services, an unprecedented crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and countless other actions from the administration […]
Less than a month after making their debut, the WH-1000XM6 are on sale at Amazon in black, blue, and platinum with a $30 gift card for $448. It’s not a straight cash discount, sure, but if you were already debating picking up Sony’s latest pair of noise-canceling headphones, it makes the $50 price hike over […]
One of the biggest surprises of the Nintendo Switch 2's reveal was its proposed accessibility. For years, Nintendo has been known for accidentally stumbling on accessibility solutions while stubbornly refusing to engage with the broader subject. Yet, in the Switch 2, there appeared a more holistic approach to accessibility for which disabled players have been […]
The first Switch was such a hit that Nintendo decided not to mess with a good thing. Instead of releasing a successor that feels like a generational leap or a pivot in a new direction, it's following up the hugely successful original with the Switch 2 - a welcome upgrade that largely sticks to the […]
Combining quantum entanglement with hash chains promises randomness which can be relied on
Scientists in the US have built a system for creating truly random numbers which cannot be tampered with by a third party.…
We take a quick look at the headline features – and the growing differences
Rocky Linux 10 has caught up to the other high-profile RHELatives, but gaps between them are widening, both in tech and other ways.…
AI researchers have recently been asking themselves a version of the question, "Is that really Zuck?" As first reported by Bloomberg, the Meta CEO has been personally asking top AI talent to join his new "superintelligence" AI lab and reboot Llama. His recruiting process typically goes like this: a cold outreach via email or WhatsApp […]
Execs from Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI join Detachment 201
Several of Silicon Valley's top techies are joining the Army Reserve as part of a newly created unit that will be trying to accelerate the use of AI in military planning and operations.…
23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki is set to buy back the company after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. On Friday, 23andMe and TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit public benefit corporation run by Wojcicki, announced in a press release that TTAM would be buying “substantially all of the Company’s […]
With Tehran’s military weakened, digital retaliation likely, experts tell The Reg
The current Israel–Iran military conflict is taking place in the era of hybrid war, where cyberattacks amplify and assist missiles and troops, and is being waged between two countries with very capable destructive cyber weapons.…
Hello, and welcome to the first premium edition of Where's Your Ed At, a weekly column where I'll give you a view of the week's news, and a general sense of how I'm feeling about the state of the tech industry.
But the five-satellite upstart has a short time window
A messy legal fight between Ligado and Inmarsat over direct-to-cellular (D2C) spectrum has been settled, giving upstart AST a chance to gain ground on Starlink.…
Some of us take a kind of “I eat to live” rather than an “I live to eat” approach to gadgets. They’re tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that’s you — and there’s no judgment here from a certifiable gadget […]
Spaceballs, which was first released nearly 40 years ago, is getting a sequel in 2027 from Amazon MGM Studios. A Spaceballs 2 announcement trailer posted Thursday doesn’t have any solid details besides the date, though it does poke fun at the entertainment industry’s obsession with franchises and spinoffs by listing many of them out. (I […]
Whether you’re buying your first pair of AirPods or replacing a well-used older pair, it’s easy to understand why so many iPhone owners prefer Apple’s earbuds and headphones over other options. Apple has spent years gradually adding new features that work best — and sometimes only work at all — within the company’s walled garden. […]
Some trace back to an outfit under US export controls for alleged PLA links
Both Apple's and Google's online stores offer free virtual private network (VPN) apps owned by Chinese companies, according to researchers at the Tech Transparency Project, and they don't make this fact readily known to people downloading the apps.…
Splatoon 3 already looked phenomenal on the original Switch, in a way that seemed to defy the console's hardware limitations. The game's paint-slicked visuals were gorgeous, and its chaotic battles were a testament to how well the Switch could run software that was fine-tuned to make the best of its specs. What was most impressive, […]
If you’re looking to declutter the cables on your desk or nightstand and keep all of your devices charged, Belkin’s Qi2-ready BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 wireless charger will help you get the job done. Right now, it’s on sale for $99.99 ($30 off) at Amazon in black and white color schemes. That’s both its best price […]
Oracle’s 80-year-old co-founder pulls off a $25 billion cloud day to leapfrog Zuck and Bezos into the No. 2 spot
Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison has reclaimed the No. 2 spot on Forbes's real-time billionaire list, trailing only Elon Musk after leapfrogging Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.…
Google is rolling out a test that puts its AI-powered Audio Overviews on the first page of search results on mobile. The experiment, which you can enable in Labs, will let you generate an AI podcast-style discussion for certain queries. If you search for something like, “How do noise cancellation headphones work?”, Google will display […]
Please insert another million dollars to continue
Broader AI adoption by enterprise customers is being hindered by the complexity of trying to forecast inferencing costs amid a fear being saddled with excessive bills for cloud services.…
Anbernic hasn’t officially released or even put its new RG Slide handheld up for preorder yet, but a handful of reviewers have recently shared their first impressions of the new console. Anbernic may be leaning a bit too far into novelty and nostalgia with the RG Slide’s design, while not actually capitalizing on what made […]
Mark Zuckerberg reached out to our source directly
Exclusive Meta has made lavish and lucrative offers to a select set of AI researchers in an effort to develop superintelligent AI.…
Work on next gen already underway, while bandwidth needs for datacenters just keep rising
The PCI Special Interest Group (PIC-SIG) just released official specs for PCIe 7.0, doubling the bandwidth again for high-performance kit such as network cards, while hinting that PCIe 8.0 may not achieve the same.…
Legacy lock maker Kwikset has been producing innovative smart locks since 2013, when it released the first touch-to-open lock, the Kwikset Kevo. The company followed that up with the launch of one of the first key-free locks in 2016, one of the earliest Apple HomeKit locks, and one of the first fingerprint-only locks. Kwikset has […]
After the year of self-induced tumult that Sonos has been through, I can understand why some people are reluctant to spend money on the company’s products. But interim CEO Tom Conrad has shown that he’s determined to get back on track and revitalize Sonos as the leading whole-home audio brand. The contentious mobile app is […]
I've been checking out a lot of new Switch 2 accessories recently, almost all of which were produced before the companies that made them ever touched a real Switch 2. Even a millimeter's difference in dimensions could completely throw off a design, and some products I've tried lack a perfect fit. For example, Genki's Attack […]
Zero-day potentially tied to around 100 suspected infections in 2025 and a spyware scandal on the continent
Apple has updated its iOS/iPadOS 18.3.1 documentation, confirming it introduced fixes for the zero-click vulnerability used to infect journalists with Paragon's Graphite spyware.…
Google is rolling out new Gemini AI features for Workspace users that make it easier to find information in PDFs and form responses. The Gemini-powered file summarization capabilities in Google Drive have now expanded to PDFs and Google Forms, allowing key details and insights to be condensed into a more convenient format that saves users […]
Though Disney and Pixar are about to start getting everyone hyped for Toy Story 5, the studios are already working hard on another feature. While Disney and Pixar opened their Annecy presentation with more details about their next movie, Elio, and gave updates about Toy Story 5, the studio surprised festival goers by announcing that […]
The US Department of Transportation wants to make it easier for automakers and tech companies to deploy self-driving cars without traditional controls like steering wheels and pedals. In a letter sent to stakeholders, the department said it would streamline reviews of requests for exemptions from safety rules requiring vehicles to have steering wheels, pedals, and […]
Sales of HDDs to non-hyperscale outfits increasingly rare, say analysts
Feature In early May, independent digital storage analyst Thomas Coughlin shared news of falling sales and revenue in the first quarter of 2025, continuing a trend that started in around 2010. Coughlin cites data from that year showing around 600 million annual hard disk shipments.…
Steam will soon fully support Macs equipped with Apple’s in-house chips. In the latest Steam client beta spotted by 9to5Mac, Valve says the “Steam Client and Steam Helper apps now run natively on Apple Silicon.” That means Steam will no longer need to use Rosetta 2 to run on Macs with M-series chips. Rosetta 2 […]
On his personal blog, Eric Migicovsky, the creator of the original Pebble smartwatch, has shared some updates and important milestones about the smartwatches his new company plans to release this year. The Core 2 Duo smartwatch is “nearing mass production,” according to Migicovsky, and Core Devices is “on track to ship out all pre-orders in […]
Infosec employers demanding too much from early-career recruits, says ISC2
Cybersecurity hiring managers need a reality check when it comes to hiring junior staff, with job adverts littered with unfair expectations that are hampering recruitment efforts, says industry training and cert issuer ISC2.…
The Switch 2 is a hit (and a supply chain success story). Microsoft is starting to show off its plan for the future of Xbox. And everywhere you look, there are reasons to think we're headed toward a very different kind of gaming device. Maybe it'll be even more modular and portable. Maybe it'll be […]
Google has completely revamped its Snapseed image editing app on iPhone and iPad. The change, spotted earlier by 9to5Google, is Snapseed’s first big update on iOS since adding dark mode in 2021. Snapseed was originally only available on iOS before Google acquired it in 2012 as part of a bid to compete with Instagram. Google […]
Superstitions stoked by blackout of iPortal centralized platform when no maintenance was scheduled
Barclays Bank is wrestling with some digital gremlins affecting its corporate banking services this Friday the 13th of June – the final day of the working week for many of us, but perhaps not the poor techies beavering away to restore normal play.…
Jutes revolt against Redmond: Minister for Digital Affairs aims the longboats away from Vinland
Comment The boss of Denmark's Ministry for Digitalization says her department will move away from Microsoft – starting with LibreOffice.…
Google has confirmed that it plans to shut down Android’s Instant Apps later this year, attributing the decision to “low” usage of the functionality. Instant Apps were introduced in 2017, and allow developers to create mini versions of Android apps that load, well, instantly. Users can try apps and demo games from the click of […]
Tesla is relaunching its Model S and Model X with minor changes as the EV maker struggles to address plummeting demand. The updated vehicles are launching in the US today with a $5,000 price increase applied across the All-Wheel Drive (AWD) and high-performance Plaid versions of both models, but judging by the comments on the […]
Deal includes 'waiver of historic fees'
UK universities and colleges have signed a contract worth up to £9.86 million ($13.33 million) with Oracle to use its controversial Java SE Universal Subscription model, in exchange for a "waiver of historic fees due for any institutions who have used Oracle Java since 2023."…
More like FlAIme Of The Week
Flame Of The Week It's been a while since our last Flame Of The Week, but it appears that AI is generating some strong feelings among our beloved readership.…
We’re still over a month away from the premiere of season three, but Paramount has announced that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is getting a fifth season — and that it will be its last. While Strange New Worlds’ first four seasons are (or will be) all ten episodes long, the fifth will run for […]
The PCIe 7.0 specification has now been released, while many of us are still waiting for PCIe 6.0 to materialize in consumer products. The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) announced on Wednesday that PCIe 7.0 is now available to members of its organization, delivering a theoretical maximum bandwidth speed of 512GB per second in both […]
It was one of the offenders' final warning
Four staffers at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) were let off with warnings over separate cases involving the transmission of regulator data to their personal email accounts.…
Abusive manager had to be told there's no such thing as an atomic laptop
On Call By Friday morning, Reg readers’ batteries can sometimes be a little low, which is why we always use the day to offer a jolt of amusement in the form of On Call – the reader contributed column in which we celebrate the lows and lows of tech support.…
STEP sucked up £220 million in 2022, and it's still not apparent what that accomplished
The UK government has just allocated another £2.5 billion to an ambitious fusion energy project without any indication it's progressed much beyond the planning stages.…
Alleges dirty PR campaign to slur its tech
China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies has accused rival chipmaker Micron of defamation through a campaign to publish nasty stories and reports about it.…
Meta is paying $14.3 billion to acquire 49 percent of Scale AI and hire its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to revamp its troubled AI efforts. As part of the deal, Wang will report directly to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and remain on Scale's board of directors, both companies announced on Thursday. Sources say Wang will lead […]
Mattel-OpenAI deal paves the way for an AI beach-off
Toy giant Mattel has signed a deal with OpenAI to bring the tech industry's buzziest technology to the very youngest generation.…
