Sci-Tech news

• I'm an airline pilot and this is where your poop goes when you flush the loo on a plane

  23-04-2023 18:30 via dailymail.co.uk
  
  In a video seen 4.4million times, on TikTok pilot @flywithgarrrett tried to dispel the rumours surrounding where people's mid-flight business goes.
  
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• UCLA settles Oracle ERP dispute with $3.1M in credits and $1.31M wiped off the bill

  12-10-2026 14:58 via theregister.com
  
  UCLA and Oracle have settled a dispute over a troubled ERP project originally budgeted at $120 million, with the vendor waiving $1.31 million in outstanding fees and granting $3.1 million in credits against future charges. In May, the University of California's Compliance and Audit Committee recommended a settlement [PDF] of UCLA's pre-litigation dispute with Oracle, which the Board of Regents approved. According to documents released in response to a California Public Records Act request, UCLA
  
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• Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away: Copilot edition

  12-10-2026 14:41 via theregister.com
  
  Not satisfied with shoehorning Copilot into every crevice of Office, Microsoft is adding Office to the Copilot app, while also evicting the AI assistant from certain parts of Outlook. The plan is simple: give the Copilot app a prompt, and it will create an Office document (for example, Word) and let a user edit it in the appropriate Office application while keeping the Copilot conversation going. The document can be shared with other users too, who can use the prompt Copilot to tweak it. Albeit
  
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• London cabbies want Sadiq Khan to slam the brakes on robotaxis

  12-10-2026 14:13 via theregister.com
  
  London's minicab drivers want Mayor Sadiq Khan to put the brakes on robotaxis before they threaten thousands of jobs, with a new City Hall report casting doubt on whether the capital is ready for driverless cars. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has called on Transport for London (TfL) to halt the rollout following the publication of a London Assembly Transport Committee report on Monday. The 66-page report makes uncomfortable reading for the companies hoping to unleash fle
  
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• Pigeon-powered internet packet goes under the hammer at Christie's

  12-10-2026 13:30 via theregister.com
  
  A piece of internet history that once traveled strapped to a pigeon's leg is up for auction at Christie's, where someone has already bid $4,000 for what might be the world's most expensive ping. The unusual lot is a surviving IP packet from a 2001 experiment in which Norwegian Linux enthusiasts decided to find out whether the internet could, in fact, run on birds. The idea dates back to April 1, 1990, when American network engineer David Waitzman published RFC 1149, titled A Standard for the Tra
  
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• Imagine there's no Shiny Hunters – AI could make human hacking crews obsolete

  12-10-2026 12:27 via theregister.com
  
  KETTLE The FBI has announced what appears to be a third arrest in the ShinyHunters investigation, following the group's breach of Bureau systems, even as AI advances potentially leave human hackers on borrowed time.You can listen to the latest episode of The Kettle on this page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. You can also subscribe on those platforms to be notified when a new episode goes live. A second vulnerability discovered by Anthropic's Mythos model has been exploited in the wild, an
  
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• Could YOU survive the apocalypse? Experts reveal the skills you'll need when the world falls apart - and it's bad news for stockpilers

  12-10-2026 11:50 via dailymail.com
  
  An expert has revealed the skills you need to survive an apocalyptic scenario, but they might not be what you expect.
  
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• When you just need to build a tiny desktop app: TinyJS

  12-10-2026 11:43 via theregister.com
  
  As the world’s billionaires anxiously plot datacenters to run trillions of lines of AI-generated slop code, one software engineer has zagged in a completely different direction: building an ecosystem for writing and running small apps that run on desktop computers, like it was 1992 all over again. Self-described “maker of things” Tarwin Stroh-Spijer has created a JavaScript runtime, called TinyJS, for making very small applications (many occupying ~6MB or less on disk) for macO
  
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• Celebrating the brilliant pragmatism of TCP/IP, the wiring of the world

  12-10-2026 11:02 via theregister.com
  
  It's 1988. Windows 2.0 is a DOS shell that runs on a dual-floppy 8086 PC. VGA is the aspirational video standard. A three-man startup in East London has decided to create low-cost LANs. There's not much of that and not much by way of standards, which is why a young programmer is rather excited by an emerging contender called TCP/IP. He's particularly keen because he's just finished implementing IBM's PC networking API, NetBIOS, which hurt almost as much as integrating any sort of networking with
  
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• Raspberry Pi Desktop catches up with Debian 13 after 4-year wait

  12-10-2026 10:15 via theregister.com
  
  Raspberry Pi Desktop has returned after four years, skipping Debian 12 to deliver a new version based on Debian 13 "Trixie." The updated release brings the familiar Pi desktop to PCs and Intel Macs, and could be worth a look if you want a simple, lightweight Linux to revive an older machine. Raspberry Pi's main business is making and selling its relatively inexpensive Arm single-board computers. This isn't its only activity, though: as well as hardware, it also maintains its own custom Debian-ba
  
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• To save paper, mainframe tech ruined a week of work

  12-10-2026 09:28 via theregister.com
  
  Another working week has arrived, bringing with it the chance to shine or commence career decline. The latter is the sort of thing The Register often writes about each Monday in "Who, Me?" – our reader-contributed column that shares your stories of workplace errors. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Mark," who took us deep into computing history because his story comes from his time working at the UK office of legendary mainframe maker Sperry Univac. Mark told us this was the tim
  
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• The first-date diet: Nutritionist reveals garlic could boost your sex appeal while fizzy drinks and sweeteners may ruin your chances

  12-10-2026 09:15 via dailymail.com
  
  The days of worrying about what to wear on a first date may be over - as what you've eaten beforehand could be just as important, according to a nutritionist.
  
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• Step inside Britain's strangest property: Abandoned RAF 'spin machine' used to test the limits of the human body goes on sale for £750,000

  12-10-2026 09:05 via dailymail.com
  
  If you've got a spare £750,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you could become the proud owner of Britain's strangest property.
  
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• Elon Musk Restores Trillionaire Title, Becomes The Richest Man On Earth

  12-10-2026 06:11 via technocracy.news
  And, incidentally, he’s the richest man in the galaxy, too. The irony is strong. Musk’s grandfather, Josh Haldeman, was the national leader of Technocracy, Inc. in Canada in the 1930s and 1940s. He had no fortune to speak of and no technical expertise. Now his grandson is the pioneer of the modern technology that is capturing the world for Technocracy, earning him the title (in my opinion) of Arch-Technocrat, and he has self-funded his rise to power. Now there is no stopping him.&nbs
  
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• Millions face 'winter storm battleground' as new models predict heavy snow blasts in 19 US states

  12-10-2026 05:14 via dailymail.com
  
  New forecast models for winter warn that millions of Americans may end up stuck in an arctic 'battleground' of snow and ice in just months.
  
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• AI systems are fully capable of carrying out nightmare attacks against infrastructure and nobody's ready

  11-10-2026 13:30 via theregister.com
  
  Autonomous AI systems are fully capable of carrying out a nightmare cyberattack scenario – finding and attacking critical operational technology and industrial equipment, and shutting down access to water, power, and other daily life necessities. If this happens, defenders may only have minutes to detect and block it, according to a Booz Allen Hamilton report. The consulting firm’s operational technology (OT) lab tested eight scenarios to examine advanced models’ capabilities w
  
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• HPE's networking boss says AI will handle all trouble tickets without humans in two years

  11-10-2026 11:37 via theregister.com
  
  HPE is extending its AI-powered networking automation across its hybrid cloud portfolio. That news came from Rami Rahim, formerly CEO of Juniper Networks and now president and general manager of HPE's networking business, whom The Register met last week when he visited Australia. Rahim champions what HPE calls "self-driving networks" – AI-assisted monitoring and automated remediation, part of the broader field known as AIOps. The networking boss thinks AIOps will mean human network adminis
  
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• Caught looking! Straight women enjoy gazing at attractive females just as much as handsome men, study finds

  11-10-2026 10:39 via dailymail.com
  
  We all enjoy a discreet stare at someone good-looking. But new research reveals that instinct plays out very differently depending on whether you're a man or a woman.
  
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• Researchers work out how to control 2D semiconductor growth for future chips

  11-10-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  Researchers have demonstrated a way to control where 2D semiconductor crystals begin growing, potentially addressing an obstacle to manufacturing next-generation chips at scale, according to a study published in Nature. The paper, "Spatially deterministic nucleation of 2D semiconductors by etching flux," was authored by a team including researchers at KAIST and South Korean startup TDS Innovation and published on October 7. The technique uses an etching flux to suppress the formation of new crys
  
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• Scientists say ancient black holes could hold the key to a hidden FIFTH dimension beyond our universe

  11-10-2026 09:25 via dailymail.com
  
  Black holes are already some of the strangest objects in the universe, but scientists now say they could unlock an even more bizarre part of the cosmos.
  
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• Deadly Hurricane Isaias claims its first victims as terrifying video shows moment tree crushes emergency worker: Live updates

  10-10-2026 22:06 via dailymail.com
  
  Isaias hit Destin, Florida, on Friday evening and clocked in at just 6mph under a Category 3 hurricane.
  
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• Bigfoot sightings across 14 US states reveal an eerie pattern sparking claims a creature is hiding nearby

  10-10-2026 18:40 via dailymail.com
  
  More than 5,000 Bigfoot sightings from across the US has found a stunning pattern tied to when and where the alleged creatures are typically seen.
  
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• America's pet cats often infected with 'beaver fever' that transmits to humans, scientists warn

  10-10-2026 17:00 via dailymail.com
  
  A parasite which causes long-lasting diarrhea and lingering health issues in people has been found in a large portion of US house cats.
  
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• The three lost kings: An ancient 'Game of Thrones' saw Assyrian rulers wiped from history for nearly 3,000 years, scientists reveal

  10-10-2026 13:24 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have uncovered evidence for three previously unknown kings who briefly ruled one of the world's most powerful ancient civilisations.
  
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• Hurricane Isaias rips roofs off buildings, lifts cars and plunges 300,000 Florida homes into darkness

  10-10-2026 13:19 via dailymail.com
  
  The monster storm slammed into the Florida Panhandle Friday night, ripping hotel roofs apart, toppling trees and sending enormous waves surging toward coastal communities.
  
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• Two characters open up a world of typosquatting opportunities in Chromium browsers

  10-10-2026 12:15 via theregister.com
  
  Researchers say two characters available to typosquatters and phisherfolk can trick Chromium browsers into displaying lookalike URLs as genuine web addresses. Wangling a domain name to look an awful lot like that of a popular website is nothing new. We’ve all encountered phishing sites such as macrosoft[.]com and applle[.]com before in our daily struggles against spam. However, as browsers mature, new characters are always being made available for use. This opens up new opportunities for t
  
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• EC users should be afraid of a US kill switch - not some new software

  10-10-2026 11:05 via theregister.com
  
  You'd swear from the over-the-top reactions that someone is threatening to take European Commission workers' dogs out back and shoot them. Why the freakout? Because the EC is deploying a self-hosted alternative to Microsoft Teams to keep staff communicating if Microsoft's service becomes unavailable. To be clear, the Commission isn't replacing Teams with Element Pro; it's setting up a backup. That's it. That's all. But according to a Politico report, users are having fits. Element is "absolute s
  
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• Stack Overflow survey finds devs hooked on AI, but not totally sold on its judgment

  10-10-2026 10:14 via theregister.com
  
  Nearly a third of developers who use AI daily spend four hours or more of their working day with it, according to Stack Overflow's latest survey. The survey received 30,903 responses from developers and technologists across 169 countries. Among the 10,926 daily AI users who answered the time-use question, about 80 percent reported using the tools for at least an hour a day. The research by developer Q&A site Stack Overflow also found skepticism from developers toward using AI in their roles.
  
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• Microsoft leans on open weight model from Chinese AI lab to challenge Jev

  10-10-2026 09:10 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has joined the Jev fan club, an accidental group of companies that share a common desire to be recognized for their own decision models. Jev, announced by TypeSafe AI three weeks ago, is a large language model (LLM) tuned to respond to certain types of questions with a limited range of responses, rated by probability. Due to its speed, relative affordability, and response constraints, it's well-suited for a variety of business applications where open-ended text of uncertain accuracy mi
  
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• Hurricane Isaias rips roofs off buildings, lifts cars and plunges 300,000 Florida homes into darkness: Live updates

  10-10-2026 07:40 via dailymail.com
  
  The monster storm slammed into the Florida Panhandle Friday night, ripping hotel roofs apart, toppling trees and sending enormous waves surging toward coastal communities.
  
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