Sci-Tech news

• Assam: 'Mysterious' giant stone jars found in India

  31-03-2022 08:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The jars are thousands of years old and may have been used for ancient human burial practices.
  
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• Hurricane warning issued as second monster storm in two weeks nears Hawaii, spaghetti models predict

  19-08-2026 22:35 via dailymail.com
  
  Days after a hurricane destroyed 100 homes and killed at least two people, another tropical storm is just hours away from forming and striking the same US state.
  
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• NASA Mars photo sparks claims of aliens on the Red Planet

  19-08-2026 22:33 via dailymail.com
  
  An image of Mars taken by NASA's rover has sparked theories that aliens may be hiding on the Red Planet.
  
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• Doomed NASA space telescope set for uncontrolled fall to Earth after failed rescue mission

  19-08-2026 22:19 via dailymail.com
  
  NASA called off the mission to save its dying space telescope on Wednesday, dooming it to a fiery reentry into Earth.
  
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• Mysterious 'flying' object in NASA Mars photo sparks theory of extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet

  19-08-2026 21:53 via dailymail.com
  
  An image of Mars taken by NASA's rover has sparked theories that aliens may be hiding on the Red Planet.
  
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• Largest great white shark ever recorded in Atlantic reveals new location after racing up US East Coast

  19-08-2026 19:41 via dailymail.com
  
  The largest male great white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic has suddenly reappeared after prowling the US East Coast.
  
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• Epic Games dismisses Apple's simplified EU App Store fees as 'junk'

  19-08-2026 18:21 via theregister.com
  
  Apple's latest attempt to settle its App Store dispute with the European Commission has drawn criticism from Epic Games and a cautious response from a consumer group, which warned that "the devil is in the detail." Announced on August 18, the changes introduce new business terms for applications distributed in the European Union. Apple says the changes "reduce complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business terms" and resolve its long-running spat
  
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• Flock surveillance backlash mounts as fiendish Halloween plans circulate

  19-08-2026 18:08 via theregister.com
  
  Surveillance tech company Flock has struggled with its public image for years, but the problem has become particularly acute in recent weeks. Its network of ALPRs has long attracted criticism over mass surveillance and the retention of location data belonging to motorists who are not suspected of any offense. Days after its CEO apologized for documented abuses of the company's system, The Register contacted the company's usually responsive media team about an online campaign calling for its auto
  
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• More than half of Americans now view AI negatively

  19-08-2026 17:25 via theregister.com
  
  Attitudes towards AI are shifting in America. More than half of adults now say that they are more concerned than excited about the technology, and that includes those under 30 for the first time. This comes from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, which says that concerns over potential job losses caused by AI are the main factor influencing opinion. It found that 71 percent of US adults think AI will lead to fewer jobs in their country over the next two decades, up from 64 percent tw
  
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• Deadly 'fungal storm' barrels toward major Arizona cities TODAY as officials warn residents to stay indoors

  19-08-2026 16:42 via dailymail.com
  
  A potentially hazardous dust storm is heading toward more than one million Americans, carrying the risk of causing a serious lung infection.
  
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• ISS spacewalkers discover there's no such thing as a quick antenna job

  19-08-2026 16:07 via theregister.com
  
  Stubborn electrical connections and bolts thwarted an attempt to replace an antenna on the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, forcing spacewalkers to leave the new unit for another day. We've all been there. That "quick job" expected to take a few minutes stretches into hours as bolts refuse to budge and unforeseen problems eat into time better spent enjoying a cookie and tasty beverage. A pair of ISS spacewalkers had much the same experience yesterday. Removing a faulty antenna from t
  
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• Comcast gives its Wi-Fi motion detector a security makeover

  19-08-2026 15:14 via theregister.com
  
  Comcast has folded its Wi-Fi-based intruder detection feature into Xfinity Shield, a repackaged bundle of physical and cybersecurity offerings. The US telco launched WiFi Motion in 2025. Xfinity Shield also includes cybersecurity protections built into the Xfinity Gateway router. The Wi-Fi sensing technology harnesses the radio waves beamed around a user's home to detect motion and potential intruders. "Using Xfinity Gateway intelligence, WiFi Motion detects changes in the home's radio frequency
  
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• That's roar-some! NASA's James Webb captures a stunning photo of the Lion Nebula - revealing a dust 'mane' and a stellar core 'nose'

  19-08-2026 15:10 via dailymail.com
  
  Officially known as NGC 2392, the nebula gets its nickname thanks to its resemblance to a lion.
  
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• What words were born the same year as you? Time Traveler tool reveals all the terms added to the dictionary in your birth year

  19-08-2026 14:54 via dailymail.com
  
  A tool from Merriam-Webster can help you discover what words were 'born' in the same year as you.
  
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• Postgres pioneer credits Oracle with helping his database take over the world

  19-08-2026 14:37 via theregister.com
  
  INTERVIEW Oracle inadvertently helped turn PostgreSQL into the database technology now backed by Microsoft, AWS, and Google, according to Postgres creator Michael Stonebraker. Speaking to The Register earlier this month, UC Berkeley professor emeritus Stonebraker said Oracle's decision to retain MySQL after buying Sun Microsystems helped propel PostgreSQL toward dominance, at least among systems that use or support its wire protocol. PostgreSQL was launched 30 years ago this summer, adding SQL s
  
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• GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm

  19-08-2026 13:40 via theregister.com
  
  GitHub has published its account of this week's nearly eight-hour outage, tracing the developer pain to saturated load balancers, a faulty autoscaling policy, and a "latent retry bug in Visual Studio Code." According to GitHub, problems began at 1328 UTC on August 17 and weren't fully resolved until 2115 UTC – a 7-hour, 47-minute incident that produced elevated errors across Issues, Pull Requests, APIs, Actions, and Copilot. The immediate cause was network saturation on load balancers in t
  
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• British festivalgoers are being forced to wear face masks after the record dry summer sparks 'apocalyptic' plumes of dust

  19-08-2026 13:25 via dailymail.com
  
  Festivals across the country have seen huge clouds of dust kicked up by crowds - with attendees complaining of itchy throats, sore eyes and difficulty breathing.
  
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• Scotland's AI Growth Zone gets a wee £300M power-up

  19-08-2026 13:02 via theregister.com
  
  Datacenter operator DataVita has secured £300 million ($406 million) to expand its campus in Scotland's Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone, while Dell is moving into the area – albeit only into a regional office. The AI Growth Zone, unveiled earlier this year, centers on DataVita's server farm campus in Airdrie. The operator has secured financing to expand its existing facility and build another nearby, promising hundreds of construction jobs and 100 permanent roles. The £300 million d
  
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• Apple accidentally LEAKS footage of its widely rumoured camera-equipped AirPods - as shocked fans joke 'someone is getting fired'

  19-08-2026 12:30 via dailymail.com
  
  The video is just 13 seconds long, and was shared on X by MacRumors Analyst, Aaron Perris.
  
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• SAP consultant job ads overshoot final offers by up to 12%, recruiter claims

  19-08-2026 12:10 via theregister.com
  
  SAP consultant job ads across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland typically quote salaries 10 to 12 percent above the eventual offer, according to a recruitment firm specializing in the market. Employers seeking SAP consultants include IT services firms, management consultancies, and large companies overhauling their technology estates. Research into hiring across the ERP vendor's European heartland suggests that the salary advertised may exceed the offer ultimately made to the successful candidat
  
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• Raspberry Pi gets jiggy with batch CM5 provisioning

  19-08-2026 11:42 via theregister.com
  
  Raspberry Pi has unveiled a $600 Programming Jig to take the faff out of preparing batches of Compute Module 5 (CM5) boards for deployment. The device combines the provisioning host and module interface in one box, eliminating the need for a separate IO board. The IO board is, of course, considerably cheaper, but serves a different purpose: it exposes a CM5's interfaces for development and prototyping. It can also be used during provisioning, albeit through a more involved setup. The Programming
  
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• Why are bluefin tuna back in UK waters? As a 746lb fish is caught in the North Sea for the first time in 90 years, scientists reveal how warming seas and strict fishing quotas have brought back the giant predators

  19-08-2026 11:40 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have revealed why giant bluefin tuna are returning to British waters after a colossal 746lb (338kg) specimen was caught in the North Sea for the first time in almost 90 years.
  
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• UK taxman discovers low code doesn't mean low cost with £657M awards

  19-08-2026 10:44 via theregister.com
  
  The UK tax collector has awarded three contracts worth up to £657 million for low-code software development and support, dispelling any notion that empowering users with tech skills would necessarily mean low cost. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which collected £938.8 billion in tax during the latest reported financial year, has awarded French consultancy and outsourcer Atos a contract for "specialist low-code leadership services." These will include "programme oversight, supplier
  
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• NASA estimates the size of the hole SpaceX made in the moon

  19-08-2026 08:15 via theregister.com
  
  NASA has used its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to capture more pics of the mess on the moon left by a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage. As The Register has previously reported, in 2025 private aerospace concerns Firefly and ispace hired a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for their respective Blue Ghost Mission 1 and RESILIENCE moonshots. RESILIENCE did not live up to its name. Blue Ghost did rather better. The trajectory used to get the two craft to Luna meant the upper stage of the Falcon 9 was on a col
  
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• Baidu says Chinese buyers want local AI chips due to ‘supply chain’ issues

  19-08-2026 06:07 via theregister.com
  
  Chinese web giant Baidu yesterday told investors it sees good days ahead for its Kunlunxin chip biz, because local buyers won’t have alternatives. Baidu has previously said it plans to spin out and float Kunlunxin, which makes CUDA-compliant inferencing chips that it uses for its own cloud services and has sold to the likes of Huawei and ZTE, who use them in kit they sell to Chinese telcos. Speaking on the company’s Q2 earnings call, Dou Shen, executive veep of Baidu’s AI Cloud
  
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• Australian hotel chain leaks guests’ PII after breach at third-party database operator

  19-08-2026 04:16 via theregister.com
  
  Australian aparthotel chain Quest has revealed it leaked customer data. A Reg reader kindly shared an email from the chain with the subject line “Important Security Update Regarding Your Quest Data.” That missive opens with unwelcome news that “I am writing to inform you of a recent data security incident involving some of your personal information.” “On Monday, 17 August 2026, we identified unauthorised access to a database system and immediately took steps to cont
  
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• Trump Wants The Strait Of Hormuz As A U.S. Territory. IMEC Is Why.

  19-08-2026 02:55 via technocracy.news
  
  On August 14, 2026, President Donald Trump stood in front of a law-enforcement crowd at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City, Long Island. Trump told them that after “defeating Iran” he would declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States. Wait for it… The Strait of America?
  NOTUS (News of the United States) recorded Trump’s words:
  “After we finish defeating Iran, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of t
  
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• Cerebras CS-4 rack systems juice chips for every last drop of AI performance

  19-08-2026 02:00 via theregister.com
  
  If high-speed AI inference is what you’re after, memory bandwidth is the bottleneck to beat. At a mind-numbing 21.6 petabytes per second (PB/s) of memory bandwidth, Cerebras' dinner-plate-sized AI accelerators were already 1,000x faster than Nvidia's or AMD’s best GPUs. The chip newcomer unveiled its next-gen Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) and Nexus rack systems on Tuesday. Cerebras aims to extend that lead by boosting throughput per watt tenfold over the previous generation. Putting the '
  
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• OpenAI's overhead will rise 20 percent for some workloads as it hardens security

  19-08-2026 01:36 via theregister.com
  
  OpenAI on Tuesday said its decision to suspend model training work, implemented after unreleased, unsupervised AI models hacked HuggingFace, remains in effect as the AI biz tries to implement stronger security measures. Some of those measures will increase compute overhead by 20 percent of the observed inference workload. An OpenAI spokesperson told The Register that those costs reflect internal research and won't be passed on directly to customers. The company has not revealed what portion of i
  
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• Europe's seas are experiencing an 'alarming' surge in temperatures - and scientists say climate change is to blame

  19-08-2026 01:04 via dailymail.com
  
  Europe's seas are warming at an 'alarming' rate - and climate change is largely to blame, according to scientists from the World Weather Attribution.
  
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