The Register

Successful qualification run for P160C solid-fuel motor in South American spaceport

A qualification version of the P160C solid-fuel motor was successfully tested at the European Spaceport in French Guiana on April 24, paving the way for heftier payloads on the Ariane 6 and Vega rockets.…

Taxpayers foot bill to get to new platform as Fujitsu package balloons to £2.44 billion

The UK's Post Office would have to cope with suboptimal IT, increased risks and costs, and reduced reporting accuracy if it didn't receive £136 million ($180 million) in government aid to keep its disastrous Horizon system running and replace it with a more modern platform.…

Third-party data supplier also in hot water with Brit regulator over consent issues

Britain's data privacy watchdog has slapped a fine of £90k ($120k) on a business that targeted people with intrusive marketing phone calls, despite them being registered with the official "Do Not Call" opt-out service.…

Because coding phishing sites from scratch is a real pain in the neck

Darcula, a cybercrime outfit that offers a phishing-as-a-service kit to other criminals, this week added AI capabilities to its kit that help would-be vampires spin up phishing sites in multiple languages more efficiently.…

Now that AI is invading classrooms and homework assignment, students need to learn reasoning more than ever

Students are increasingly turning to AI to help them with coursework, leaving academics scrambling to adjust their teaching practices or debating how to ban it altogether.…

Cursor, Codium makers lose access as add-on goes exclusive

Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) no longer works with derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor – and some developers are crying foul.…

At least it wasn't Harvard

Yale New Haven Health has notified more than 5.5 million people that their private details were likely stolen by miscreants who broke into the healthcare system's network last month.…

Watch your partitions – GPT and dual-boot don't always mix

While The Reg FOSS desk was on spring break, both the latest interim Ubuntu and latest Fedora debuted.…

Tech giants don't need smartphone mics to target adverts – your insurer just gives your data away, anyway

US health insurance giant Blue Shield of California handed sensitive health information belonging to as many as 4.7 million members to Google's advertising empire, likely without these individuals' knowledge or consent.…

This one weird trick can stop Windows updates dead in their tracks

Turns out Microsoft's latest patch job might need a patch of its own, again. This time, the culprit is a mysterious inetpub folder quietly deployed by Redmond, now hijacked by a security researcher to break Windows updates.…

Collecting data from solo players is a Far Cry from being necessary, says noyb

For anyone who's ever been frustrated by the need to go online to play a single-player video game, the European privacy specialists at noyb have heard you, and they've filed a complaint against Ubisoft in Austria dealing specifically with the issue. …

'Inventory accumulation' as vendors hoard HBM amid tariff and other pressures

South Korean memory maker SK Hynix is reporting a sales bounce due to the demand for AI systems, helped by US businesses stockpiling HBM supplies amid tariff uncertainty.…

Something broke on Windows 11 24H2, but dev who discovered it tells El Reg this time Microsoft's not to blame

Microsoft's Windows 11 24H2 update is frustrating some users, but it isn't the operating system at fault this time. Instead, it's down to a 20-year-old error in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.…

Alleges semi designer tried to obstruct Qualy's build of Arm-compatible custom cores

Qualcomm has amended its complaint against Arm in a 2024 lawsuit, adding more allegations about Arm's purported breach of license agreements and accusing it of "misrepresenting" their relationship by intending to make its own rival chips.…

Get a new, clean (maybe suspiciously empty) install up to speed – and keep it there

When you install a fresh, clean copy of Windows – say, if you're switching to the LTSC edition – Ninite is here to kickstart provisioning the new OS.…

Extreme weather is such a problem when building bit barns... hmmm, wonder what could be causing that?

When it comes to building datacenters, reducing the environmental impact of the project is still not seen as a major concern – it is lower on the list than cost of equipment and materials, skills shortages, a possible downturn in projects, and even bad weather.…

Customers told to expect further delays as contactless payments still down

UK high street retailer Marks & Spencer says contactless payments are still down following its "cyber incident" and order delays are likely to continue.…

Cybercriminals are targeting software shops, accountants, lawyers

The percentage of confirmed data breaches involving third-party relationships doubled last year as cybercriminals increasingly exploited weak links in supply chains and partner ecosystems.…

Software slingers from Redis to Teradata are bolting on smarts to stay relevant in GenAI era

About two years ago, popular cache database Redis was among a wave of vendors that added vector search capabilities to their platforms, driven by the surge of interest in generative AI.…

Bad timing, claim industry watchers, who say rulings could seriously upset an already delicate US-EU relationship

Meta and Apple have earned the dubious honor of being the first companies fined for non-compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act, which experts say could inflame tensions between US President Donald Trump and the European bloc.…