Sci-Tech news

• Chipmakers laughing all the way to the vault as memory prices go stratospheric

  24-08-2026 15:40 via theregister.com
  
  Semiconductor revenue is set to nearly double this year, with Gartner projecting the industry will bring in $1.6 trillion in 2026, up sharply from $809 billion in 2025 Memory chips are driving almost all of that growth: DRAM and NAND revenue are each expected to roughly triple or quadruple, pushing memory past non-memory chips in total revenue for the first time. Gartner expects memory alone to top $1 trillion by 2027. Last year, memory revenue was $220 billion vs $589 billion for non-memory chi
  
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• Fleet of 'doomsday planes' spotted over US hours after CIA boss visits Moscow

  25-08-2026 22:11 via dailymail.com
  
  Multiple US nuclear-command aircraft known as 'doomsday planes' took to the skies Tuesday, within hours of the CIA director's unexpected trip to Moscow.
  
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• World's snake attack hotspots revealed: Map shows the countries with the most encounters - and Australia doesn't even make the top 20

  25-08-2026 20:00 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists from the Liverpool School of Tropical medicine have revealed the countries where the most incidents occur every year.
  
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• True tomb of Jesus discovered after 2,000 years as hidden location that aligns with Bible account is found

  25-08-2026 19:43 via dailymail.com
  
  After years of digging beneath one of Christianity's holiest sites, archaeologists uncovered clues that strikingly mirror the Gospel account of Jesus' final resting place.
  
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• Winter snow map reveals 14 surprising US states set to be hammered as Super El Niño arrives

  25-08-2026 19:25 via dailymail.com
  
  Several states throughout the US could see as much as ten inches of snow more than their yearly average as a record-setting El Nino erupts in the Pacific.
  
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• EPA to drop requirement for public notice of polluting datacenters

  25-08-2026 18:40 via theregister.com
  
  Soon, you may not even be able to find out what that new neighborhood bit barn could do to your air quality. A proposed change by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would eliminate federal minimum requirements for public participation in minor-source air permits, a move critics warn could affect some datacenter projects. The Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of former employees of the EPA itself, says the proposed rule change would eliminate mandatory public notice and
  
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• You could've applied all 1,449 Oracle patches and still been hit by this attack

  25-08-2026 18:09 via theregister.com
  
  In late July, Oracle released a mammoth security patch dump with 1,449 patches, in a perhaps unprecedented bad day for database admins. None of them, it turns out, would have prevented the credential theft on an Oracle database server described by security platform Huntress. “Even if it had been fully patched, everything working, it still would have happened,” said Craig Savage, cybersecurity lead at Oracle third-party support vendor Spinnaker Support, referring to the attack. In Jul
  
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• Microsoft warns that transitioning Excel workbooks to new Exchange connectors might not be smooth sailing

  25-08-2026 17:53 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has issued a warning to Excel users. Want to keep using the Exchange Connector? You'll have to migrate your workbook connections and switch to Microsoft 365 or Office 2024. The software giant just published a timeline for the switchover in its Message Center. The roadmap puts customer validation of the new Exchange Mail and Calendar connectors as starting in August (along with access for early adopters), sets the final phase of the Exchange Web Services (EWS) retirement enforcement in
  
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• Discovered: Stunning 2,000-year-old secret beneath Jesus 'burial site' that perfectly aligns with Bible account

  25-08-2026 17:49 via dailymail.com
  
  After years of digging beneath one of Christianity's holiest sites, archaeologists uncovered clues that strikingly mirror the Gospel account of Jesus' final resting place.
  
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• Slop factory bans Russians for using slop factory to create slop

  25-08-2026 17:15 via theregister.com
  
  ChatGPT may spew a lot of digital garbage onto the internet, but the same bots that output the trash can be used to stop it. The company draws the line at influence operations that want to slop in the name of love . . . of mother Russia. OpenAI said in a Tuesday blog post that it had identified a cluster of accounts originating from Russia using ChatGPT to produce social media posts and comments directing internet denizens to what appears to be a fake Israeli think tank critical of the west and
  
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• Elon Musk: No One Gets Free Bread Until I Have Replaced Every Worker With a Robot

  25-08-2026 17:05 via technocracy.news
  
  Elon Musk, the world’s most logical Technocrat, has a fatal flaw in his logic: he says he will sell or lease an Optimus robot to every human on Earth and then, magically, the cost of everything will fall to zero and there will be no need for money (except to buy the new and improved Optimus?) Somehow, he expects the same magic to cause you to give a hearty AMEN as you head toward your own destruction. For all his purported wisdom, Musk is patently insane to say this with a straight face. &
  
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• US convicts ex-Philips engineer for exposing X-ray secrets to competitor

  25-08-2026 16:43 via theregister.com
  
  A 71-year-old Philips engineer has been found guilty of stealing the company’s medical imaging trade secrets and passing them on to a Chinese competitor. Chih-Yee Jen worked at Philips’ Aurora, Illinois, facility where engineers researched, developed, and manufactured X-ray tubes for the company’s computed tomography (CT) medical imaging machines. X-ray tubes contain multiple components that combine to transform electricity into X-ray images. Jen left Philips on December 29, 20
  
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• OpenAI's upcoming Jalapeño chip looks like it'll be an inference beast

  25-08-2026 16:00 via theregister.com
  
  OpenAI offered its closest look yet at its spicy new Jalapeño AI accelerator at the annual Hot Chips semiconductor development conference at Stanford on Tuesday. The chips, first teased earlier this year, were developed in collaboration with Broadcom, and are the first in a series of custom silicon from OpenAI, designed (in part) by AI, for AI. Compared to contemporary GPU systems from Nvidia, OpenAI says the parts will deliver both higher throughput and lower latency when they start tric
  
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• Windows XP was released to manufacturing a quarter of a century ago

  25-08-2026 15:27 via theregister.com
  
  It is a quarter of a century since Microsoft packed Windows XP off to manufacturing, finally drawing a line under the Windows 9x codebase (behind Windows 95, 98, and Me) and making Windows NT something for consumers. Before Windows XP, consumers and businesses lived in two different software worlds. XP was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, succeeding Windows 2000 for professionals and Windows ME (Millennium Edition) for home users. Compared to Windows ME, XP was rock solid (although,
  
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• SiFive pushes development server to take RISC-V into the datacenter

  25-08-2026 14:13 via theregister.com
  
  RISC-V chip champ SiFive has launched a development server built around its own CPUs to help port key workloads to the open compute architecture, and claims it already has hyperscalers and software customers signed up. The processor design firm biz showcasing its BigSky SF-2U870 datacenter development platform at the Hot Chips conference in Palo Alto, California, this week. At the show, it will run a variety of server workloads, and is built specifically for customers to accelerate RISC-V datace
  
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• US Air Force transport jet makes 'highly unusual' landing in Moscow sparking frenzy of theories

  25-08-2026 13:58 via dailymail.com
  
  A US Air Force transport jet made a highly unusual landing in Moscow on Tuesday, sparking a frenzy of theories about its mysterious mission.
  
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• Microsoft breaks WPF printing with .NET update

  25-08-2026 13:27 via theregister.com
  
  Having some unexpected printer problems? Microsoft's August 2026 .NET update might have broken printing on your device. According to Microsoft, "After installing the August 2026 .NET Framework cumulative update, some WPF applications may fail with a System.IO.FileFormatException when printing or generating PDF/XPS content that uses certain fonts, including Calibri." Ah yes, Calibri, the default font in some versions of that little-used application, Microsoft Word. The cumulative update for .NET
  
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• Hidden in plain sight: Stone from Henry VIII's long-lost Sandown Castle was reused in Dover Castle, study finds

  25-08-2026 13:04 via dailymail.com
  
  Part of King Henry VIII's long-lost Sandown Castle has been rediscovered hiding in plain sight.
  
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• CISA slaps its tightest three-day patching deadline on perfect-10 Oracle flaw

  25-08-2026 12:43 via theregister.com
  
  The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) just dished out another three-day deadline for patching an actively exploited vulnerability, the most urgent in its wheelhouse. The culprit: a max-severity Oracle bug affecting Windows VMs. Tracked as CVE-2026-21962 (10.0), the improper access control (CWE-284) flaw affects Oracle’s HTTP Server and WebLogic Server Proxy Plug-in. Successful attacks targeting CVE-2026-21962 can allow miscreants to create, delete, or modify access
  
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• Ukraine unveils native jet-powered drone interceptor

  25-08-2026 12:00 via theregister.com
  
  Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) says the country has brought into service its first home-grown jet-powered drone interceptor, intended to take out Russian attack drones. The weapon, known as the Alexa Spatium, is a v-tail unmanned plane developed by Ukrainian engineers to destroy small airborne and surface targets. It was designed primarily to engage Russian kamikaze drones such as the Geran-3, Geran-4, and Geran-5, plus the infamous Shahed-131. Measuring 1.5 by 1.7 meters, it is launc
  
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• When will the Super El Niño storms hit the UK? Scientists tell Brits to prepare for heavy rain and flooding from October - followed by a 'bitterly cold' winter

  25-08-2026 11:17 via dailymail.com
  
  According to scientists, Brits should prepare for 'heavy rainfall and flooding' from as early as October.
  
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• Crooks push Mac malware through fake OpenAI Codex ads

  25-08-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  Cybercrims are using fake OpenAI Codex download pages to trick Mac developers into running malware disguised as installation commands. Researchers at Cato Networks uncovered the campaign after spotting sponsored Google search results targeting people looking to download Codex for macOS. The ads direct would-be users to a convincing-looking download page hosted on Google Sites, complete with the familiar OpenAI branding. There is, however, no Codex waiting at the other end. Instead of serving up
  
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• Sea level rise could be even worse than we thought: Satellite images reveal how tides can vary by almost a metre across a single bay

  25-08-2026 11:06 via dailymail.com
  
  Sea level rises could be even worse than previously thought for some unlucky coastal communities, as scientists uncover a massive difference in local tides.
  
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• HMRC dangles £500M carrot for National Insurance system revamp

  25-08-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  The UK government is inviting suppliers to bid to build a new national insurance system with a price tag of up to £500 million. The tax collector, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), has issued a call to speak to suppliers about the procurement to continue to run and then update the National Insurance and PAYE System (NPS). The “change” aspect of the new contract, which could last up to seven years, is to support “strategic milestones, key business events, and legislative or
  
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• What is virtualization modernization?

  25-08-2026 10:00 via theregister.com
  
  Virtualization modernization is the process of rethinking how you manage virtual workloads across your hybrid estate. IT challenges are expanding, with organizations facing a mixture of licensing challenges and new workloads. This is prompting them to examine their virtualization portfolios. Many are trying to modernize by pricing alternative hypervisors, a rational reflex that often produces the wrong answer. The temptation is to treat virtualization as a line item, swapping out the product whi
  
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• Australia’s record industry won’t chart tunes recorded in the key of AI

  25-08-2026 09:15 via theregister.com
  
  The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has decided it won’t list AI-generated music on its charts of best-selling music. The decision comes into effect this week and follows two interesting musical moments of note. One came when an AI-assisted cover version of Madonna’s Like a Prayer hit the top ten in Australia, stirring debate about whether using AI to make music is an off-key creative decision. The other was the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (
  
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• SpaceX claims it will put a Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system into orbit next year

  25-08-2026 07:21 via theregister.com
  
  SpaceX will send at least one datacenter rack into space next year, according to Elon Musk, with more to follow in 2028. The occasional trillionaire made that claim on Monday on the user-generated content platform – a.k.a. the social network X – that he runs in part to feed the Grok models SpaceX develops with up-to-date contextual data. “SpaceX, in partnership with Nvidia, has designed a space-optimized Vera Rubin NVL72 system for launch to orbit in Q4 next year, with signific
  
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• IBM announces chip that natively executes Arm and Z instructions concurrently

  25-08-2026 03:27 via theregister.com
  
  IBM has revealed it is working on a chip with processor cores that can execute instructions for its own mainframe chips and for the Arm architecture – and for the LinuxONE architecture too for good measure. Big Blue says the unnamed chip will be built on a two-nanometer technology node, include 11 high-performance cores operating at more than 5.7 GHz, plus AI inference accelerators for in-transaction fraud detection, a dedicated on-chip data processing unit for I/O acceleration, and a larg
  
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• Microsoft AI watermarks in Paint and Photos are linked to user IDs, researcher finds

  25-08-2026 02:10 via theregister.com
  
  When Anthropic disclosed earlier this month that it would be applying a statistical word-choice watermark to its Claude text output, the company noted that at least 190 AI providers have agreed to abide by Europe's AI transparency rules. One such company is Microsoft, which has been applying its own form of watermarking to images created with the assistance of AI in its Paint and Photos applications for Windows. The EU's Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content requires tha
  
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• Hoover Dam's horror threat to 40 million Americans: As 'tipping point' is reached... expert warns residents in THREE states to brace

  25-08-2026 02:09 via dailymail.com
  
  An expert forecaster has revealed the trigger for a crisis which threatens up to 40 million Americans.
  
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