The Register

Broadband biz teams up with Good Things Foundation to teach the digitally doddery how to dodge fraud

UK network Virgin Media O2 is taking steps to combat fraud with a nationwide education scheme that aims to help vulnerable people and older folk avoid becoming victims.…

Vendors promote bridge to modern architecture for legacy systems, but Db2 not going anywhere just yet

IBM has signed an OEM agreement with Cockroach Labs – maker of the distributed PostgreSQL-like cloud RDBMS CockroachDB – in a bid to help modernize mission-critical applications reliant on mainframe hardware.…

Can be shifted for a tenth of the price AND the wings don't have to come off – allegedly

Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have hit back at a Smithsonian memo on relocating Space Shuttle Discovery, claiming the institute's cost estimates are "more than ten times higher" than quotes from private logistics firms.…

Workaround sent to the big OOBE in the sky with latest Insider builds

Microsoft is closing a popular loophole that allowed users to install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account.…

Mic-E-Mouse can roar by literally vibe hacking speech

The mouse sitting next to you can be turned into a microphone thanks to some cunning use of its sensors to pick up vibrations from your voice in an attack dubbed Mic-E-Mouse.…

JIT compiler included but experimental and can slow performance

The Python team has released version 3.14, with big new features including free threading support, the ability to use concurrent interpreters, improved debugger support, and an opt-in new interpreter which improves performance by 3 to 5 percent.…

From homework helper to psychological hazard in 300 hours of sycophantic validation

Feature  When a close family member contacted Etienne Brisson to tell him that he'd created the world's first sentient AI, the Quebecois business coach was intrigued. But things quickly turned dark. The 50-year-old man, who had no prior mental health history, ended up spending time in a psychiatric ward.…

No idea who's behind it, just happy it's over

London-based wholesale telecoms biz ICUK is back on track after a multi-day DDoS attack on its network and systems.…

Department also wedded to Big Red in shared service applications

The UK's Home Office has signed a new deal with Oracle for around £54 million ($72 million) in cloud infrastructure and platform services as it gears up as the centerpiece of a government shared services strategy based on Big Red.…

Recyclers reckon millions of obsolete PCs could yield a small fortune in precious metals

There's gold in them thar piles of old Windows 10 PCs. Quite literally, according to recyclers.…

Researchers argue that this dark pattern poses a legal risk

AI companion apps such as Character.ai and Replika commonly try to boost user engagement with emotional manipulation, a practice that academics characterize as a dark pattern.…

Jailbreaks, direct prompt injection not allowed

Google on Monday rolled out a new AI Vulnerability Reward Program to encourage researchers to find and report flaws in its AI systems, with rewards of up to $30,000 for a single qualifying report.…

House Committee on China wants more comprehensive ban on chipmaking equipment exports to Middle Kingdom

US export controls have had mixed results in stemming the flow of chipmaking equipment into China, according to a congressional investigation, which found US and allied companies sold $38 billion worth of semiconductor tools in 2024 alone.…

Microsoft Copilot, not so much

Employees could be opening up to OpenAI in ways that put sensitive data at risk. According to a study by security biz LayerX, a large number of corporate users paste Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Payment Card Industry (PCI) numbers right into ChatGPT, even if they're using the bot without permission.…

Agency aims to replace its default 'no' with default 'yes' while overhauling rules for operators

The US Federal Communications Commission has launched "Space Month," with Chairman Brendan Carr saying that "we'll replace a default to no at the agency to a default to yes" for satellite licensing requests.…

No fraud monitoring and no apology after miscreants make off with medical, financial data

Florida-based Doctors Imaging Group has admitted that the sensitive medical and financial data of 171,862 patients was stolen during the course of a November 2024 cyberattack.…

Florida comms outfit serving cops, firefighters, and the military says hackers pinched some employee data but insists its systems stayed online

BK Technologies, the Florida-based maker of mission-critical radios for US police, fire, and defense customers, has confessed to a cyber intrusion that briefly rattled its IT systems last month.…

It also banned some suspected Russian accounts trying to create influence campaigns and malware

OpenAI has banned ChatGPT accounts believed to be linked to Chinese government entities attempting to use AI models to surveil individuals and social media accounts.…

Studies at UC Berkeley in the 1980s paved the way for quantum computing and cryptography

Three researchers in sub-atomic physics have been awarded a Nobel prize for work which helped lay the foundations for quantum computing.…

Google and Zed have already adopted ACP – will Microsoft now follow?

JetBrains has joined Google and Zed Industries in adopting the fledgling Agent Client Protocol (ACP), a standard for how AI agents interact with code editors and integrated development environments (IDEs).…