AI can now design functional viruses – not the computer kind, either
A group of Stanford bioengineers claim that they've created synthetic bacteriophages using AI-generated designs that not only work in the real world, but are far more infectious than their naturally-occurring counterparts. …
Google pushes emergency patch for Chrome 0-day – check your browser version now
Google pushed an emergency patch for a high-severity Chrome flaw, already under active exploitation. So it's time to make sure you're running the most recent version of the web browser.…
Word to the wise: Don't tell your IT manager they're not in Excel
On Call Welcome to another installment of On Call, The Register's Friday frolic through your tales of delightful tech support encounters.…
Microsoft boasts about humongous datacenter on abandoned Foxconn site in Wisconsin
Microsoft's CEO has claimed the operating system-slinger is building the "world's largest datacenter."…
MI6 reveals 'Silent Courier' dark web portal upgrade it hopes will help it recruit new spies
The UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, aka MI6, has created a dark web portal called “Silent Courier” that it hopes would-be foreign informants will find a suitably secure means of sharing secrets.…
Slack threatened to delete nonprofit coding club’s data if it didn’t pay $50k in a week
Slack sent a nonprofit hacking club for teens a demand for $50,000, payable within a week, and threatened to delete the club’s message archive if it did not pay.…
Pigs will fly: Uber Eats to trial drone delivery
Flying pigs may soon be on their way to some US households, after rideshare and food delivery behemoth Uber teamed with drone operator Flytrex for food delivery services.…
Humanity now has zero active robots at Venus as Japan ends 15-year ‘Dawn’ mission
Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency has decided to abandon its Akatsuki Venus orbiter, after losing contact with the craft last year.…
Russian fake-news network, led by an ex-Florida sheriff's deputy, storms back into action with 200+ new sites
The Russian troll farm that in the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election posted a bizarro video claiming Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was a rhino poacher, is back with hundreds of new fake news websites serving up phony political commentary with an AI assist.…
Intel and Nvidia sitting in a tree, NVLink-I-N-G
Nvidia is set to become one of Intel's largest shareholders after the GPU giant announced on Thursday it would invest $5 billion in the struggling chipmaker under a co-development agreement targeting PCs and datacenter infrastructure.…
Google stuffs Chrome full of AI features whether you like it or not
Now that it knows it won't be forced to sell its browser, Google is cramming AI into every vacant corner of Chrome it can find, whether you like it or not. …
Two Scattered Spider teens charged over attack on London’s transport network
Two teenagers are set to appear in court today after being charged with offences related to the cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL) in August 2024.…
Atlassian drops $1B on company that helps measure dev productivity
Atlassian has continued its AI spending spree with a $1 billion takeover of developer analysis biz DX, a move it promised would give devs "less friction and more flow."…
Crims bust through SonicWall to grab sensitive config data
SonicWall is telling some customers to reset passwords after attackers broke into its cloud backup service and accessed firewall configuration data.…
The Notepad that knew too much: Humble text editor gets unnecessary AI infusion
Microsoft is continuing to shovel AI functionality into its Notepad application, with Windows Insiders the first test subjects.…
Cybercriminals pwn 850k+ Americans' healthcare data
Cybercriminals broke in and stole nearly a million Americans' data in the space of a week, in the course of three digital burglaries at healthcare providers.…
OpenAI says models are programmed to make stuff up instead of admitting ignorance
AI models often produce false outputs, or "hallucinations." Now OpenAI has admitted they may result from fundamental mistakes it makes when training its models.…
Workday U-turns on rehiring pledge as activist investors take $2B stake
Activist investors have taken a $2 billion stake in Workday, signaling approval of its direction and saying they "look forward to continued collaboration with the company."…
Cloudflare DDoSed itself with React useEffect hook blunder
Cloudflare has confessed to a coding error using a React useEffect hook, notorious for being problematic if not handled carefully, that caused an outage for the platform's dashboard and many of its APIs.…
French jet left circling while Corsican controller caught Zs
In the high-stress and safety-critical world of air traffic control, "don't fall asleep" probably comes pretty far toward the top of the rule book, and yet that's apparently the reason for the landing delay of an Air Corsica Airbus A320 this week.…