The Register

Who guards the guardrail makers? Not the bosses who hire them, it's alleged

Scale AI, which labels training data for machine-learning models, was sued this month, alongside labor platform Outlier, for allegedly failing to protect the mental health of contractors hired to protect people from harmful interactions with AI models.…

Hello Operator? Can you give me number nine? Can I see you later? Will you give me back my dime?

OpenAI on Thursday launched a human-directed AI agent called Operator that can use a web browser by itself to accomplish various online tasks, or at least try to do so.…

But we mean, you've had nearly four years to patch

One of the critical security flaws exploited by China's Salt Typhoon to breach US telecom and government networks has had a patch available for nearly four years - yet despite repeated warnings from law enforcement and private-sector security firms, nearly all public-facing Microsoft Exchange Server instances with this vulnerability remain unpatched.…

No in-the-wild exploits … yet

Cisco has pushed a patch for a critical, 9.9-rated vulnerability in its Meeting Management tool that could allow a remote, authenticated attacker with low privileges to escalate to administrator on affected devices.…

OpenAI boss tell world's richest man money is there to fund infrastructure project

Updated  The world has been treated to tech bros squabbling over Stargate, the alleged $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project led by OpenAI, while the grown-ups look on.…

Interim appointment after former head booted out for not being 'sufficiently focused on growth'

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new chair after the sudden departure of the previous incumbent.…

x86 behemoth calls the approach 'innovative' - DIY builders may disagree

Intel claims a more modular approach to PC design could make systems easier to repair and reduce electronic waste – and it has some proposals for you.…

Big organizations and governments are main users of these gateways

SonicWall is warning customers of a critical vulnerability that was potentially already exploited as a zero-day.…

Company 'strongly disagrees' with law infringement allegations

Meta has again come under fire for its pay-or-consent model in the EU.…

Generative AI needs a break, just like the rest of us, m'kay?

OUTAGE  Reactivate your brain. ChatGPT has gone down.…

Chips and software giant Broadcom says it's 'flexible and open' on licensing terms, but customers disagree

VMware users continue to be unhappy with licensing changes since the virtualization giant was acquired by Broadcom, and are now complaining that they are being forced into three-year commitments when renewing vSphere licenses.…

Shares slide at 'most profitable' company in Korea as world worries over geopolitics

Market uncertainty and fears around trade protectionism are overshadowing SK hynix's latest earnings, with its shares sliding despite revenue doubling for the financial year just completed.…

As Microsoft, Apple, and Google switch the tech on by default, what happened to asking for permission first?

Opinion  Copilot in Microsoft 365 and Apple Intelligence on iDevices are the latest examples of the tech industry's obsession with making services opt-out rather than opt-in.…

CMA flexes its new Strategic Market Status muscles

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations into both Apple and Google, probing the duo's control of their respective mobile ecosystems.…

Plus: 'Largest-ever' duff traffic tsunami clocks in at 5.6 Tbps

In addition to Chinese spies invading organizations' networks and ransomware crews locking up sensitive files, botnets blasting distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks can still cause a world of hurt — and website downtime — and it's quite likely your competitors are to blame.…

Amazon doesn't break out figures, but then again neither do Microsoft nor Google

As more businesses shift an ever greater number of workloads to the cloud, hyperscalers aren't doing enough to help CIOs or tech buyers, who are already under legislative pressure, to be more transparent about their own corporation's carbon footprint regarding compute services.…

And the government thinks that AI and taking shackles off big tech will help? God help Britain

For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the number of tech firms incorporated in the UK has declined, with a shrinking economy, as well as high inflation and interest rates causing a slump in business confidence.…

Nailed just 15% of assigned tasks

A service described as "the first AI software engineer" appears to be rather bad at its job, based on a recent evaluation.…

Answers on a postcard to what 'Microcode Signature Verification Vulnerability' might mean

AMD has confirmed at least some of its microprocessors suffer a microcode-related security vulnerability, the existence of which accidentally emerged this month after a fix for the flaw appeared in a beta BIOS update from PC maker Asus.…

What? Why? Xi wants people spending, so has extended a subsidy scheme to phones, tabs, and smartwatches

If you want a cheap iPhone, China’s the place to be right now thanks to a government subsidy scheme that means resellers are discounting the devices to make sure Beijing helps to pick up the bill.…