The Register

Side-channel ring race 'hard to mitigate with existing defenses'

Chip-busting boffins in America have devised yet another way to filch sensitive data by exploiting Intel's processor design choices.…

‘Subtle and very nasty bug’ meant 5.12 rc1 could trash entire filesystems

Linux overlord Linus Torvalds has rushed out a new release candidate of Linux 5.12 after the first in the new series was found to include a ‘subtle and very nasty bug’ that was so serious he marked rc1 as unsuitable for use.…

Proof-of-concept SEER taught over eight days using 512 GPUs

Facebook has trained its most advanced semi-supervised computer vision system yet on a dataset of a billion public images taken from Instagram, its other social network.…

Trick future robot overlords by scribbling 'superuser' on your forehead

OpenAI researchers believe they have discovered a shockingly easy way to hoodwink their object-recognition software, and it requires just pen and paper to carry out.…

'That is not the world we want, nor the one users deserve'

With the arrival of Google Chrome v89 on Tuesday, Google is preparing to test a technology called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, that it hopes will replace increasingly shunned, privacy-denying third-party cookies.…

Why are carriers so worried about people's battery life during lockdown?

US telco Verizon recently splashed $45bn on 5G spectrum and then advised its customers to use LTE to save device battery life. Not to be outdone, rival carrier T-Mobile is recommending battery-anxious punters use 2G instead of the latest-and-greatest in cellular connectivity.…

SaaS pusher says it has locked up social media account after 'unauthorised access'

Near ubiquitous SaaS CRM pusher Salesforce got a rude awakening this week when its carefully curated image of a business addressing racial equality was shattered by its clearly hacked LinkedIn page.…

Deep sea submersible may help humans explore deepest oceans

Researchers in China have developed flexible submersible robots that experts say might one day help humans reveal the secrets to unexplored depths of the Earth's vast oceans.…

Ninth anniversary celebrated with bug fixes for enthusiasts and power users

A month after version 7.1 of LibreOffice hit the streets, the first update has landed replete with a swathe of bug fixes for the suite.…

Data from multiple aviation giants hit

Not that many planes are taking off these days, but that didn’t stop the flight of passenger records from servers belonging to aviation tech supplier SITA after it was hit by a "cyberattack".…

'Bold play by Wipro, but one not without risk' - analyst

Outsourcing provider Wipro has bid $1.45bn for banking consultant and digital transformation outfit Capco.…

Suit says he couldn't tell 'old' price from 'new', nor perceive pop-up window

A legally blind man who cannot see "faces or text" has claimed that Dell is violating federal accessibility laws by maintaining an improperly formatted website and online store.…

'You'll be surprised at how much you can do with a personal computer'

It has been 40 years since the launch of Sinclair's ZX81, a device that welcomed countless Brits to the delights of home computing at the dawn of the 1980s.…

'No access to buildings' for striking Repayment Project engineers, confirms company

Openreach’s Project Repayment Engineers who are already on the picket line to protest over changes in the grading structure that they say devalues their role, are naming five more strike dates.…

One-fifth of all flights in a 3 hour period were affected

GPS jamming of airliners not only causes navigational havoc but delays commercial airline flights too, EU airspace regulator Eurocontrol has complained in a new report.…

Our vulture Iain argues against this week's motion

Reader debate Welcome to the latest Register Debate in which writers discuss technology topics, and you – the reader – choose the winning argument. The format is simple: a motion was proposed this week, the argument for the motion was published on Wednesday, and the argument against is published today.…

Untangling privacy implications of using Google's productivity suite not easy

A Dutch government report identifying "10 high data protection risks" for users of Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, has been revised after Google's response, and now says eight high risk issues still remain.…

Still waiting for neuroscientists to work out why

Something for the Weekend, Sir? Never again. As Gods are my witnesses, you will never catch me [insert gerund here] in future. I have learnt my lesson.…

Friends and family tech support meets steam-powered computing

On Call It's a friends and family episode of On Call today, dedicated to the moments when one's attempts to render IT assistance are met with bafflement or just plain hostility.…

The walls are closing in on the iGiant

The UK's antitrust watchdog has launched an investigation into Apple’s app store after developers complained its strict rules are an unfair stranglehold and may break competition law.…