The Register

Mission to a metal asteroid lacks xenon pressure

NASA is looking into propulsion problems experienced by a probe on its way to orbit the asteroid Psyche.…

No MFA? No problem – as long as you show you’ve learned your lesson

The UK's data protection overlord is not going to pursue any further investigation into the British Library's 2023 ransomware attack.…

Brad Smith commits org to facing off with US govt in court to protect them

Microsoft is responding to mounting "geopolitical and trade volatility" between the US administration and governments in Europe by pledging privacy safeguards for customers worried about using American hyperscalers, and vowing to fight the US government in court to protect Euro customers' data if needed.…

We look at the state of AI software development – it's not going away, but risks abound

Analysis  AI in software development has evolved rapidly since GitHub Copilot caught the world's attention with its June 2021 preview – and shows no sign of slowing down.…

Watchdog says transformation effort added costs instead of savings for most businesses

The UK tax authority's push to digitize services has backfired, saddling taxpayers with hundreds of millions in extra costs, according to a report by Parliament's public spending watchdog.…

Good news, everyone: 15 years on, TDE still pushes pixels

The long-running fork of KDE 3 has dropped its latest update: Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.4, now with better distro support and a fresh coat of code. Not bad for a project still chugging along 15 years after KDE itself moved on.…

Datacenter build slowdown hurt storage sales but Korean giant sees bit barn rebound

Samsung yesterday posted results a little better than it forecast, and attributed some of its record revenue and strong profit to customers rushing to buy kit before the USA raises tariffs on imports.…

'We thought it was a really obvious way to build a processor and everybody would be doing it'

It is 40 years since the first Arm processor was powered up, and the UK's Centre for Computing History (CCH) celebrated in style, with speakers to mark the event, hardware on show, and a countdown to the anniversary.…

For now it's a potential bug-finder and friend to defenders

RSAC  Former NSA cyber-boss Rob Joyce thinks today's artificial intelligence is dangerously close to becoming a top-tier vulnerability exploit developer.…

What? Why? It’s an update to its Outposts racks hybrid cloud rigs aimed at bankers and telcos

Amazon Web services has created new elastic compute cloud instance types for its on-prem Outposts racks, the second generation of which was announced on Tuesday.…

Oligarch's crew makes audits harder, US comptroller general tells Congress

The US Government Accountability Office has confirmed it launched audits of Elon Musk's Trump-blessed cost-trimming DOGE unit amid concerns that its access to agency systems may be complicating oversight and involving sensitive data.…

Caffeine addicts evidently not thrilled to see cafes become walk-in vending machines

Starbucks, smarting from disappointing second-quarter earnings, says that trying to replace staff with machines was a mistake.…

Former Space Shuttle boss's blog booted from Trump-era agency website

NASA has excised former Space Shuttle manager Wayne Hale's blog from its website in a reminder that nothing is forever.…

Cybersecurity is national security, says Jen Easterly

RSAC  America's top cyber-defense agency is "being undermined" by personnel and budget cuts under the Trump administration, some of which are being driven by an expectation of perfect loyalty to the President rather than the nation.…

Feds say $970K scheme defrauded 13+ companies

A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to fraud after landing a job with a contractor working on US government software, and then outsourcing the work to a self-described North Korean developer in China.…

Did we says offshore? We meant, er, hardcore. Amirite, DOGE bros?

Comment  IBM – a company understood to employ at least one-third of its global workforce in India and Bangladesh – is pledging to spend $150 billion over the next half decade on making America great again.…

Whistleblowing, email is evidential mail, HR is not your friend, and more discussed by CxO panel

RSAC  Chief security officers should negotiate personal liability insurance and a golden parachute when they start a new job – in case things go sideways and management tries to scapegoat them for a network breach.…

Asus implements droop detector for PCIe slots as GPUs now so heavy they risk toppling out

Graphics cards are now getting so bulky and heavy that device maker Asus has decided customers need a way to detect any sagging or movement of the GPU in its PCIe slot.…

We'll see if messaging client can keep up with sibling browser

Mozilla has lobbed out Firefox 138, and subsidiary MZLA's Thunderbird 138 isn't far behind. The venerable messaging client is picking up the pace and finally syncing its stride with the browser that spawned it.…

No specific law against it yet, but that's set to change

A spate of high-profile swatting incidents in the US recently forced the FBI into action with its latest awareness campaign about the occasionally deadly practice.…