Sci-Tech news

• India’s latest rocket flies but payloads don't prosper

  08-08-2022 06:01 via go.theregister.com
  
  Satellites end up in 'unusable' orbit India’s small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) made a spectacular debut launch on Sunday, but the mission fell short of overall success when two satellites were inserted into the incorrect orbit, rendering them space junk.…
  
  Read more

• The AI tipping point: where enterprise AI runs at scale

  18-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  When enterprises first began building AI strategies, the default assumption was straightforward: AI would run in the hyperscaler cloud. The APIs were ready, GPU capacity was building out, and the inertia of a decade of public cloud investment pointed in one direction. Broadcom’s Private Cloud Outlook 2026 report finds that, as enterprises move to scale, the direction has changed. The Private Cloud Outlook 2026: The AI Tipping Point draws on a blind, global survey of 1,800 senior IT leaders
  
  Read more

• Neuromorphic computing may one day offer AI a power-saving brainwave

  18-06-2026 16:01 via theregister.com
  
  Brain-inspired computing may one day help curb AI's ballooning energy demands, but don't expect it to replace today's datacenter hardware any time soon, UK politicans have been told. Speaking to MPs this week, University of York professor Martin Trefzer said neuromorphic and other bio-inspired systems could improve efficiency by borrowing ideas from biological brains, where memory and processing are integrated rather than split across separate components. Analysis from last year shows AI is the
  
  Read more

• Millions in path of 'extreme' life-threatening floods as Arthur slams EIGHT states after making landfall

  18-06-2026 15:54 via dailymail.com
  
  Extreme levels of flooding are expected to hammer up to 40 million Americans this week as the first named story of Atlantic hurricane season makes landfall.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• What do aliens EAT? Scientist reveals the foods extraterrestrials would go for on Earth - and why E.T.'s favourite Reese's Pieces are off the cards

  18-06-2026 15:34 via dailymail.com
  
  In the 1982 blockbuster, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, E.T. is lured out of hiding using a trail of Reese's Pieces. But what would aliens really eat if they visited out planet?
  
  Read more

• KDE Plasma 6.7 brings the X11 era to a close

  18-06-2026 14:57 via theregister.com
  
  The latest version of the KDE desktop - Plasma 6.7.0 - has arrived, bringing several shiny new functions – some of which have been a long time coming – and features the return of the popular Oxygen theme from KDE 4. Since the KDE 6 “megarelease” two and a half years ago, the project's developers have been very busy. Fresh Plasma releases have come thick and fast. It's fewer than six months since the release of KDE Plasma 6.6.0 back in February. This rate of change matters
  
  Read more

• AI nose uses 'Smell Language Model' to sniff out signs of disease

  18-06-2026 14:45 via theregister.com
  
  Many people worry about what AI knows, but what about an AI Nose that can smell what disease you might have? Ainos, an AI and biotech company that is developing smell technology, is working with National Taiwan University (NTU) to explore whether its platform can help diagnose patients by analyzing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath. The year-long research effort, which starts in July, will examine individuals who present with dyspnea, or shortness of breath, said to be one of t
  
  Read more

• Microsoft once used its own brand of 'Lego' to optimize Windows

  18-06-2026 14:00 via theregister.com
  
  People of a certain age sometimes like to reminisce about how software in the old days was somehow more responsive and more efficient on far less powerful hardware. Microsoft's approach was to take its software binaries and optimize the heck out of them. Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer spilled the beans on the practice, confirming that the company used an internal application called Basic Block Tool (BBT) – known internally as Microsoft Lego – to shuffle the internals of binar
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• India blocks Telegram ahead of scandal-hit medical school entrance exam

  18-06-2026 13:24 via theregister.com
  
  India has decided to block messaging service Telegram for a few days to reduce the chance of scams targeting over two million people taking a single exam that has already provoked a national scandal. The exam is called the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and is the only way to earn a place to study medicine in India. In most years, over two million people take the test – but only around 100,000 people earn a place in a medical school. Competition for those places is fierce, a
  
  Read more

• Revealed: The popular UK pet foods that contain the most microplastics - so, is your dog or cat at risk?

  18-06-2026 12:53 via dailymail.com
  
  Researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Surrey tested 38 foods from the 19 biggest brands for traces of tiny plastic particles.
  
  Read more

• FreeBSD 15.1 lands, but desktop dabblers still have to draw their own GUI

  18-06-2026 12:45 via theregister.com
  
  After a delay when a microcode-related boot problem surfaced, FreeBSD 15.1 is now available. Laptop support is getting there, but a GUI from the installer isn't – yet. You'll have to put in some extra work if you want to have more than a command prompt. As you might expect from its version number, it's much like a point release of other, more widely used OSes: it contains lots of bug fixes, and hardware support in multiple areas is improved. For the lowdown on what has changed, the Release
  
  Read more

• Gen Z are scared of ringing the DOORBELL: One in three youngsters now text or call when they arrive at someone's door because they think it's less awkward

  18-06-2026 12:17 via dailymail.com
  
  It's something most people do without thinking twice about it. But a new survey has revealed how ringing the doorbell is leaving many Gen Z petrified.
  
  Read more

• Transport for London keeps Capita behind wheel of road charging ops in £912M extension

  18-06-2026 12:00 via theregister.com
  
  Transport for London (TfL) has extended supplier Capita's two road user charging contracts at a potential cost of £912 million including VAT after delaying the start of a combined replacement by two years. TfL announced it was directly awarding the contract extensions to Capita on June 11, saying this was required given the time it will take to buy and implement a replacement support service for its road user charging schemes. These comprise the congestion charge, Low and Ultra Low Emissio
  
  Read more

• Oracle support timelines for Fusion Middleware tighter than expected

  18-06-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  Oracle has shocked its customers by releasing new end-of-life conditions for its middleware products that thousands of large organizations rely on in their enterprise application deployments. In a missive published online earlier this month, Big Red warned that support for the widely used Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c Release 2 was approaching a “critical milestone.” Top-level Premier Support is set to end in December 2026, while Extended Support will stop by the end of December 2027.
  
  Read more

• Extreme weather is Britain's new normal: Experts say 28°C is no longer considered hot in the UK - as Brits brace for yet another heatwave

  18-06-2026 11:13 via dailymail.com
  
  Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez from the University of Reading warns temperatures around 27 or 28 degrees are now becoming the norm.
  
  Read more

• UK Cabinet Office hiring AI and innovation 'influencer' to build 'AI-first culture' in civil service

  18-06-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  The UK Cabinet Office is looking for an AI and Innovation Director who can develop civil servants' use of artificial intelligence and change the way the civil service works. The task of persuading public sector workers to love AI involves "re-imagining the future workforce and business model" for the UK's civil service, promoting adoption of AI tools, "championing, coordinating, and tracking AI adoption" across government departments, and instilling an "AI-first culture," according to the job ad
  
  Read more

• Cancer-linked 'forever chemicals' discovered in scores of Tesco own-brand fish, dairy and meat products, experts claim

  18-06-2026 10:12 via dailymail.com
  
  In what has been described as an 'alarming' revelation, per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances - or PFAS for short - were detected in every food item analysed from the popular supermarket.
  
  Read more

• RoachFest London 2026: The database as competitive asset

  18-06-2026 10:00 via theregister.com
  
  The database a business depends on shouldn’t be a potential point of failure; it should be a competitive asset. That’s the proposition Cockroach Labs will put to enterprise architects and database administrators at Convene's Bishopsgate venue in London on Thursday, June 25, 2026. The one-day RoachFest London 2026 event will examine how a database makes that transition from costly liability to competitive advantage. Modern infrastructure grows more complex and harder to manage by the
  
  Read more

• Welcome to your new telco job – here's sudo access to a database with full customer info stored in the clear

  18-06-2026 09:00 via theregister.com
  
  PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, the weekly column where we register some of the worst tech security mistakes our readers have ever seen. Our goal: to help you not do the same. Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at [email protected]. Anonymity is available upon request. This week's tale of code carelessness comes courtesy of a database administrator we'll Regomize as Joker. Back in the first decade of the 21st century, she went for a job interview at o
  
  Read more

• Cyber offenses now account for around a third of all crime across Asia and South Pacific

  18-06-2026 04:00 via theregister.com
  
  Cybercrime now accounts for more than 30 percent of all offenses across the Asia and South Pacific (ASP) region, according to the latest figures from Interpol. The international cop shop said on Wednesday that the region has seen “a dramatic increase” in the number of recorded cybercrimes, driven largely by an uptake of digital infrastructure, new technologies, and the increasingly organized nature of criminal networks. Interpol’s latest ASP Cyberthreat Assessment Report states
  
  Read more

• Renowned scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson tells US government to 'Show the alien!' after latest UFO disclosure

  18-06-2026 03:08 via dailymail.com
  
  Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, 67, explained how any alien visitor from another planet would likely look very different from humans and may not even share the same DNA structure.
  
  Read more

• Estonia intends to recognize AI agents with digital IDs

  18-06-2026 01:12 via theregister.com
  
  Estonia plans to allow AI agents to have their own digital identities so they can act on behalf of people in a way that can be verified and audited. The initiative, backed by the country's Eesti.ai advisory board, calls for the development of ID codes that AI agents can use to take actions, subject to some unspecified authorization and task delegation process. Academics and corporate technical folk have already made related proposals in recognition of the absence of agentic technical infrastruct
  
  Read more

• Stonehenge's secret SISTER: Archaeologists discover an ancient monument just three miles away that may have served as a 'prototype' for the famous stones

  18-06-2026 01:01 via dailymail.com
  
  Archaeologists have discovered a secret sister monument to Stonehenge that might have served as a 'prototype' for the famous stones.
  
  Read more

• Git good with Epic Games' new open source VCS, Lore

  17-06-2026 22:49 via theregister.com
  
  Fortnite maker and Apple nemesis Epic Games has decided to git good all on its own with the open-source release of its homemade version control system, dubbed Lore. The project began life as Unreal Revision Control, and was used by internal teams and as the version control system (VCS) built into Unreal Editor for Fortnite. Now, Epic is ready to share its handiwork with the world. Lore is a centralized, content-addressed VCS that’s meant to be more flexible for developers, as it's licensed
  
  Read more

• Smelly config files will make your agents waste tokens, researchers warn

  17-06-2026 21:32 via theregister.com
  
  If you're exposing your agent to a strong odor, it's time to clean up your instructions. Risky or poorly structured code patterns are known as "code smells," and it turns out coding agent directives can be similarly redolent, leading to wasted tokens and worse output. Coding agents rely on configuration files that summarize expected agent behavior. These context-enhancing files are commonly written in Markdown and named either CLAUDE.md for those using Anthropic models or AGENTS.md for pretty mu
  
  Read more

• If AGENTS.md smells ripe, your code won’t live up to the hype

  17-06-2026 21:32 via theregister.com
  
  If you're exposing your agent to a strong odor, it's time to clean up your instructions. Risky or poorly structured code patterns are known as "code smells," and it turns out coding agent directives can be similarly redolent, leading to wasted tokens and worse output. Coding agents rely on configuration files that summarize expected agent behavior. These context-enhancing files are commonly written in Markdown and named either CLAUDE.md for those using Anthropic models or AGENTS.md for pretty mu
  
  Read more

• Nvidia-backed optics vendor to boost wafer output by 4x to meet AI interconnect demand

  17-06-2026 20:12 via theregister.com
  
  As AI systems grow larger, optics are playing a larger part in their design – so much so that at Computex earlier this month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang proclaimed the technology would make Marvell the next trillion dollar company. Now, Nvidia-backed photonics vendor Coherent plans to boost indium phosphide (InP) wafer production at its Sherman, Texas, fab by 4x in anticipation AI proliferation will trigger an explosion in optical interconnect demand. Supply chains must be ready to meet that
  
  Read more

• Tornadoes bringing 'day of destruction' to millions as extreme storms hammer 15 major US cities

  17-06-2026 19:42 via dailymail.com
  
  Over 14 million people across several states face multiple emergency warnings as floods and twisters could ravage the US Wednesday night.
  
  Read more

• Massive password-stealing attack hits 75k Fortinet firewalls

  17-06-2026 19:27 via theregister.com
  
  If you have a Fortinet firewall, it's time to stop and change your passwords. Intruders somehow gained access to around 75,000 Fortinet firewall devices and stole credentials belonging to major corporations across 194 countries, in some cases leading to full network compromise. Security researchers say that they have verified the data, and the cracked FortiGate passwords belong to accounts spanning multinational corporations including FoxConn, Samsung, Comcast, Siemens, Lenovo, FedEx, PxW, Accen
  
  Read more

• Massive leak exposes 56 million email accounts and 124 million passwords... check if yours is compromised

  17-06-2026 19:24 via dailymail.com
  
  A huge cache of stolen usernames and passwords has raised fresh concerns that millions of online accounts could be vulnerable to hackers.
  
  Read more

Follow @scitech_UK on Twitter!