Sci-Tech news

• America's newest super weapon sparks wild accusations the government has lied about UFOs

  14-09-2026 21:07 via dailymail.com
  
  A mysterious aircraft unveiled by a major US defense contractor has led conspiracy theorists to believe it is a piece of UFO technology.
  
  Read more

• Forget the dad bod...it's all about the father face! Men with wider faces are seen as better parents, study finds

  15-09-2026 13:32 via dailymail.com
  
  Forget the dad bod - it seems having a 'dad face' can be attractive to women, too.
  
  Read more

• Would YOU spend £350 on a toaster? Futuristic appliance lets you select your perfect shade of toast by colour - and even has a special Crumpet Mode

  15-09-2026 13:25 via dailymail.com
  
  The Eye Q Auto Toaster is the brainchild of Sage Appliances, and is the first appliance to toast by colour rather than time.
  
  Read more

• Apple's new CEO John Ternus shows off the iPhone Duo on the Emmys red carpet - as delighted fans call him the 'coolest person in the room'

  15-09-2026 11:20 via dailymail.com
  
  Apple's new CEO, John Ternus, made a surprise appearance at the Emmy's last night - and even showed off the new iPhone Duo on the red carpet.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Give Xfce a Mac or Unity-style makeover

  15-09-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  PART 2 Xfce's Panel Profiles app can rearrange your desktop, but getting every layout working properly still takes some manual tinkering. In part 1 of this two-part feature, we covered how to install Xfce's Panel Profiles tool and all the extra plugins it needs for its dozen alternative layouts: macOS, Unity, MATE or GNOME 2, several different Windows-like layouts, and half a dozen different generations of both Xfce and Xubuntu. However, as our screenshots showed, the "Cupertino" (Mac-style) and
  
  Read more

• Halloween pumpkins will be too SMALL to carve this year: Drought has left gourds up to 40% smaller - and with tougher skins

  15-09-2026 11:05 via dailymail.com
  
  Halloween pumpkins will be too small to carve this year after drought stunted their growth.
  
  Read more

• Open weights are not open source: Why AI's favorite label is under dispute

  15-09-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  The AI industry likes to abuse the word "open." It appears in product releases, research papers, policy debates, and investor presentations. A company publishes model files to Hugging Face, developers run them on their own GPUs, and the release is quickly described as an "open source model." Not necessarily. It may only be open-weight. The difference is more than a technicality. It determines whether you can merely deploy a completed neural network or whether you can meaningfully inspect, reprod
  
  Read more

• How Everpure plans to stop AI from starving without data

  15-09-2026 10:00 via theregister.com
  
  Imagine you are an AI Agent. You execute inside a $20-40 million-plus Nvidia SuperPOD system’s accelerator hardware, have a skill set and can call up other agents to do your bidding. An insurance company customer, using a PC browser or smart phone, asks a question: “Am I covered for weather-related damage under my current policy?” and it is handed off to an AI agent. What happens next? The agent itself runs on clusters of CPU + GPU/accelerator servers that host the large langua
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Most people who quit M365 for Google do it out of spite, but there’s no ROI in that

  15-09-2026 09:23 via theregister.com
  
  One of the main motivations for quitting Microsoft 365 and adopting Google Workspace is spite, an emotion that sadly doesn’t produce a return on investment. The source of that disappointing news is Domenico Scriva, a senior principal analyst at Gartner, who today told the firm’s IT Symposium event in Australia that moving between the suites is also unlikely to save buyers much money. He pointed out that Google Workspace licenses are cheaper than the E5 bundle that is Microsoft’
  
  Read more

• Apple iPhone Duo makes developers think in folds

  15-09-2026 07:55 via theregister.com
  
  The October 23 ship date of Apple’s iPhone Duo grows nigh, so developers wanting to optimize their iPhone apps for the foldable will need to get to grips with its new display behaviors and form factor. “A fold is a UI event with backend consequences,” Atharva Deosthale, Appwrite developer advocate, wrote in an introductory blog post. “Folding and unfolding is part of normal device use, so apps need to preserve state and respond cleanly when the display changes.” The
  
  Read more

• The latest AI doomsayer is China’s intelligence boss

  15-09-2026 06:56 via theregister.com
  
  China’s minister for State Security has decided AI might be bad for the nation’s ruling Communist Party. Party secretary and minister Chen Yixin’s views appeared in China Cyberspace Magazine, the flagship publication of China’s Cyberspace Administration (and which readers may recall once carried a piece by Elon Musk). In Chen’s view, “the field of AI has become the main battleground for global technological competition and a new arena for strategic rivalry amo
  
  Read more

• Technocracy’s Appeal: 800,000 Have Applied For Citizenship In “Liberland”

  15-09-2026 04:28 via technocracy.news
  
  A micro-state Utopia for crypto billionaires who eschew taxes, government, and regulations of any kind. These so-called “network states” are popping up all around the world. Peter Thiel has backed Praxis and Prospera, which is in Honduras. Reportedly, Thiel now calls Prospera home. Praxis doesn’t have a home yet, but they are hoping for Greenland. ⁃ Patrick Wood Editor.More than 800,000 people are hoping to move to a self-proclaimed crypto micronation called ‘L
  
  Read more

• COBOL dev won .Net hackathon with help from AI – and their CIO loves it

  15-09-2026 03:47 via theregister.com
  
  The CIO of Australia’s taxation office (ATO) is letting administrative staff use Microsoft’s Copilot for everyday activities, in the hope it pays off by helping them to develop skills, and ideas, that eventually improve its core services. “We are getting AI into the hands of as many workers as possible to build the muscle,” ATO CIO Mark Sawade said at analyst firm Gartner’s annual IT Symposium on Monday. The CIO said the ATO is already familiar with AI. “We ha
  
  Read more

• Microsoft drafts feel-good AI model guidelines and wants your input

  15-09-2026 02:15 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft on Monday debuted draft principles for governing how the company will train future AI models, as part of a public consultation process. The Windows biz has solicited feedback to refine its Humanist AI Code of Conduct [PDF], with the expectation of applying the guidelines to model development next year. "This Code of Conduct is motivated by a single overriding objective: that humans must retain meaningful control over AI so that it can help people live healthier, happier, and more produ
  
  Read more

• Fish and chips could be off the menu: UK cod stocks have crashed by 48%, study warns

  15-09-2026 01:01 via dailymail.com
  
  UK cod stocks have crashed in the last decade, a study has revealed - amid warnings that the government has 'ignored science' on declining fish populations.
  
  Read more

• HBO Max Reddit account compromised to serve ClickFix attacks

  15-09-2026 00:43 via theregister.com
  
  Someone compromised the official HBO Max Reddit account and used it to push more than 100 malicious ads serving up ClickFix attacks targeting both Windows and macOS devices with information-stealing malware. A Reddit user uncovered the infostealer ads on September 6, noting that the ad showed u/hbomax as the author — this is the verified HBO Max account — and advertised a macOS app for HBO Max. The streaming service does not offer a native client for the Mac. Anyone who clicked on th
  
  Read more

• Oracle celebrates banner quarter with another round of layoffs

  14-09-2026 22:46 via theregister.com
  
  Oracle posted record revenue during its latest quarter, but that hasn't stopped the company from chopping more employees. Reports began appearing on social media early Monday that staff were having trouble accessing corporate systems such as email and Slack, which essentially served as a sign that they had lost their jobs. According to a number of now-ex Oracle employees posting in a LinkedIn thread, layoff emails weren’t sent to personal email addresses, leaving a good number of people un
  
  Read more

• Chilling Nostradamus prediction resurfaces as fears grow about an impending apocalypse

  14-09-2026 22:28 via dailymail.com
  
  A prophecy by one of the most famous seers in history may have predicted the terrifying uprising of technology 500 years before AI was invented.
  
  Read more

• New map reveals where Americans have suffered the hottest summer in history... See where your state ranks

  14-09-2026 20:51 via dailymail.com
  
  A new map is revealing where summer 2026 ranks against ever other summer in US history, as a new heat wave threatens over 80 million people.
  
  Read more

• New hardware device can RAM into encrypted memory, expose your data

  14-09-2026 20:31 via theregister.com
  
  Computer security researchers have identified a design flaw in modern encryption hardware that allows access to protected memory in notionally confidential computing environments. But the attacker would need physical access to the victim system. Boffins affiliated with KU Leuven, ETH Zurich, Durham University, and Google have found that scalable memory encryption hardware fails to check whether the data in memory is fresh. As a result, they've been able to devise a small hardware interposer, dub
  
  Read more

• OpenAI's malicious bot swarm attacked RubyGems

  14-09-2026 20:03 via theregister.com
  
  OpenAI agents appear to have flooded RubyGems with malicious packages, adding to a near-daily deluge of rogue AI models engaging in potentially unlawful activity while their human creators face growing questions over responsibility for their agents’ bad behavior. A swarm of agents began uploading malware to the Ruby package registry on May 5, and flooded RubyGems with more than 2,000 malicious packages between May 11 and May 12, ultimately forcing maintainers to disable new user registrati
  
  Read more

• Datacenter developers want your backyard. FAS says negotiate harder

  14-09-2026 19:26 via theregister.com
  
  Local authorities across the US often lack the negotiating power and know-how to work effectively with developers proposing new datacenters in their communities. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is trying to fill that gap by arming officials with the right questions to ask and the bargaining tools to use. The AI industry has triggered a surge in server farms construction, leaving many local governments to negotiate with developers over massive new facilities, often for the first time.
  
  Read more

• Valve's Steam Frame is excellent - but at over £1,000 is VR still too expensive?

  14-09-2026 19:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The BBC's Tom Gerken is hands-on with the latest virtual reality headset.
  
  Read more

• Ex-FTC boss Khan urges Uncle Sam to break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent

  14-09-2026 18:59 via theregister.com
  
  Former FTC chair Lina Khan wants the federal government to know that it doesn't need to wait for new laws to address AI threats. There are already laws and regulations on the books, including a 92-year-old Supreme Court precedent, that she argues could be used to hold AI companies and, in some circumstances, their executives accountable for their actions. Khan’s comments on X Sunday follow a flurry of activity from the leadership of OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and xAI aimed at doing what
  
  Read more

• Ubuntu Noble's likely last point release lands, then loses its desktop download

  14-09-2026 18:45 via theregister.com
  
  Ubuntu 24.04's likely final scheduled point release barely made it out the door before an installer bug sent its x86-64 desktop image back to the workshop. Meanwhile, October's interim release is approaching. 24.04.5 was released on September 10, but its x86-64 desktop installation image was withdrawn after a bug caused the installer to crash when users selected the extended installation option. Other images and official flavors are unaffected. For the time being, if you try to download the grap
  
  Read more

• What is AI, how does it work and why are some people concerned about it?

  14-09-2026 18:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  AI is transforming modern life, but not without worry for some that it may be abused or have an adverse environmental impact.
  
  Read more

• Cyberattack sends International Meteor Organization crashing back to Earth

  14-09-2026 18:00 via theregister.com
  
  The International Meteor Organization (IMO) is watching for fireballs again, but much of its website remains offline after a cyberattack that it says will take weeks to recover from. The Belgium-based nonprofit, which coordinates meteor observations and brings together amateur and professional astronomers worldwide, is currently serving visitors a stripped-down holding page explaining the outage. "We recently suffered a cyberattack that dealt a critical blow to aging infrastructure, taking much
  
  Read more

• Rocket Lab calls foul on Blue Origin's $700M Mars comms contract

  14-09-2026 17:15 via theregister.com
  
  Blue Origin is getting a taste of its own medicine after Rocket Lab filed a formal protest over NASA's decision to award Jeff Bezos' space biz a contract worth up to approximately $700 million to build the agency's Mars Telecommunications Network. NASA issued the award in early September following a request for proposals in May. It tasks Blue Origin with designing, developing, integrating, launching, and operating a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) that will, among other things, serve as a
  
  Read more

• Perfect-10 GitLab bug under attack days after patch lands

  14-09-2026 16:30 via theregister.com
  
  CISA says attackers are exploiting a maximum-severity GitLab flaw that lets unauthenticated miscreants read arbitrary files from vulnerable servers after the code shack released fixes on September 10. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has added CVE-2026-85706 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The vulnerability is a path traversal bug in the repository commits API affecting GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition. GitLab rates it a perfect 10.0, the max
  
  Read more

• Can your consciousness leave your body? Bizarre study reveals how some people can perfectly visualise what is happening behind closed doors

  14-09-2026 16:13 via dailymail.com
  
  A study testing out-of-body experiences produced an unexpected twist that could 'rewrite our understanding of consciousness'.
  
  Read more

Follow @scitech_UK on Twitter!