Sci-Tech news

• Languages are dying, but is the internet to blame?

  24-09-2015 18:40
  
  The UN has identified linguistic diversity as one of the key challenges that must be overcome if more people are to come online. But how many languages should the internet support?By: James Temperton, Continue reading...
  
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• When one datacenter is no longer enough

  07-10-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  Training the largest AI models is no longer simply a question of adding more GPUs. As clusters grow, power availability is becoming a hard physical constraint, forcing infrastructure teams to consider how a single training workload can operate across multiple data centres. That creates a very different networking problem. Traditional datacenter interconnect was designed to move traffic between sites. AI training demands something more exacting: huge, synchronous flows, minimal packet loss and ti
  
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• Europe's mobile operators sell fewer phones but gain share as budget market shrivels

  07-10-2026 15:34 via theregister.com
  
  European mobile operators are gaining a slightly larger share of smartphone sales, not because they are selling more devices, but because other sales channels are shrinking faster. This is according to market watcher Counterpoint Research, which says that sales of new smartphones through European operators were down by 4 percent during the second quarter of this year, compared with the same period a year ago. But device sales through the open market fared much worse, declining by 11 percent. Thi
  
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• Nine in 10 VMware customers eye the exit as licensing bills bite

  07-10-2026 14:24 via theregister.com
  
  Nine out of ten respondents to a survey of VMware customers say higher licensing costs were prompting them to consider alternatives. Unisphere Research surveyed 269 executives, managers, and professionals at VMware user organizations between December 2025 and February 2026. The study, commissioned by third-party support provider Rimini Street, also found that 54 percent cited the end of perpetual license support as a reason to evaluate other options. The study showed cost remains the leading dri
  
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• Dutch tax office ditches Microsoft 365 cloud for on-premises alternative

  07-10-2026 13:30 via theregister.com
  
  The Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration has abandoned its planned Microsoft 365 cloud migration in favor of services hosted on infrastructure it controls, alongside European open source alternatives. Email and calendars will move on-premises in 2027, followed by storage and collaboration services later that year and in 2028. The letter to parliament from Eelco Eerenberg, State Secretary for Finance, follows an earlier decision to pause the Microsoft 365 rollout. The tax authority selected
  
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• FortiBleed still a bleeding nuisance as FBI confirms ongoing attacks

  07-10-2026 12:52 via theregister.com
  
  The FBI and US Secret Service (USSS) say criminals using credentials linked to the FortiBleed campaign are locking organizations out of their Fortinet firewalls. The agencies published a joint advisory on Tuesday, citing SOCRadar's verification of more than 86,644 compromised devices across 194 countries. "Based on initial responses, some victims may get locked out of their Fortinet devices if the threat actor either deletes or changes the password for original accounts on the system," their adv
  
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• Rails originator roasted over Rust boosterism

  07-10-2026 10:45 via theregister.com
  
  Last month at Rails World 2026, Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson gave a relentlessly optimistic keynote in which he suggested AI has all but eliminated the need for developers to manually write code. But perhaps DHH, as he is known online, shouldn’t delete his code editor quite yet. On Sunday, DHH posted about a test in which he had frontier agents implement and optimize his company’s Campfire group chat app in three languages: Elixir, Go, and Rust. He then compared the
  
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• COSMIC shuts the door on AI code as GNOME debates letting bug reports in

  07-10-2026 10:09 via theregister.com
  
  System76 is banning AI-generated content from contributions to the COSMIC desktop. Some GNOME sub-projects also restrict AI-generated contributions, but one developer is urging them to make an exception for vulnerability reports. The COSMIC desktop project has changed its contributors' guidelines. The latest version now has a clear no-AI rule, insisting that contributors declare: "I have not included any LLM (also known as AI) generated content in this PR, including code, comments, and descripti
  
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• From reactive to proactive: How endpoint monitoring is fixing broken meeting rooms

  07-10-2026 10:00 via theregister.com
  
  The role of meeting rooms is changing. Traditionally, they were formal spaces built around a large central table and inflexible physical setup, reserved primarily for board meetings, client presentations, or official status updates. The rise of hybrid work and advances in collaboration technology have made that approach increasingly obsolete. Employees now come into the office to connect, collaborate, and brainstorm with colleagues rather than to undertake the solo, focused work they can do bett
  
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• South Korean president calls for creation of tools that stop all cyber-attacks

  07-10-2026 05:56 via theregister.com
  
  South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has told the nation’s cabinet that it’s time to develop AI-powered defensive tools to combat AI-wielding attackers. “Recently, a series of personal information leak incidents have been occurring at financial and public institutions,” he said yesterday – likely referring to incidents like the breach at e-tailer Coupang and last week’s raid on local banks that exposed customer data. “Circumstances indicate that artifici
  
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• Microsoft defines its Azure instance lifecycle, without any info about timing

  07-10-2026 04:22 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has updated the lifecycle of an Azure instance, without offering any information on how long it takes for an instance type to expire. Redmond’s “enhanced lifecycle” landed in late September in a post that explains the four phases in the life of a cloudy VM:Current – VMs are recommended for new deployments, are available in many regions, and receive standard maintenance and support;Extended – Still supported, but may be subject to usage quotas and unspecifi
  
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• Got H2O? Technocracy’s Control Over Water

  07-10-2026 02:43 via technocracy.news
  
  “Air and water have traditionally been regarded as ‘free’ goods, but the enormous costs to society of past and present pollution show that they are not free… The policy question is how and by whom they will be paid, not whether.” — Our Common Future (Brundtland Report), 1987¹
  “Where ground-water use exceeds the recharge capacity of local aquifers, regulatory or fiscal controls become essential.” — Our Common Future, 19872
  “Guarant
  
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• Anthropic reconfigures its cool kids security program

  07-10-2026 01:29 via theregister.com
  
  Only a week after warning about the perils of competitor Z.ai's GLM-5.3 model and its advanced cybersecurity capabilities, Anthropic has expanded its Cyber Verification Program (CVP) – or rather, reconfigured it. "For the past six months, we’ve enabled trusted access through two programs: Project Glasswing and the CVP," the AI biz said. "Now, we’re integrating these programs into one expanded offering, designed to give more security organizations access to the capabilities they
  
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• Google teams with nuclear power giant to give reactors a tune-up

  07-10-2026 01:08 via theregister.com
  
  Google on Tuesday struck a deal with Constellation Energy for 3,590 megawatts of future energy supply, including nearly a gigawatt of new nuclear capacity, as the search and advertising giant tries to find enough energy to power its datacenter ambitions. The 20-year power purchase agreement will see Constellation, the largest purveyor of atomic energy in the US, bring an additional 890 megawatts of nuclear capacity online by making "targeted investments at multiple nuclear plants." We understand
  
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• Anthropic Claude subscription plan provides more value than OpenAI's, study says

  06-10-2026 23:11 via theregister.com
  
  The rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI, the two leading US AI model makers, is no contest when it comes to assessing which one gives you more value for your subscription money, according to industry research firm SemiAnalysis. Following changes to OpenAI's $200 per month subscription plan that effectively halved its value, SemiAnalysis looked at the various subscription plans offered by AI companies, because that's still the main way that individuals and small businesses buy AI services. AI su
  
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• Permanent daylight saving time could be a public health time bomb

  06-10-2026 22:32 via theregister.com
  
  President Trump is pushing hard for the US Senate to make daylight saving time permanent so, among other things, golfers can stay on the course longer, but it may not be such a bright idea. New research out of Canada suggests that, even if Americans would get an extra hour of daylight in the evening, the ill health effects of permanent daylight saving time could outweigh the benefits. A paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday reviewed evidence on the health effects
  
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• Millions across 9 US states told to brace for 'coldest air of the season' as Canadian cold blast hits TODAY

  06-10-2026 21:37 via dailymail.com
  
  Meteorologists are warning millions of Americans to brace for the 'coldest air of the season' starting Tuesday evening.
  
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• UFO ties of missing scientist who vanished days after Trump's alien files order fuel new allegations

  06-10-2026 20:39 via dailymail.com
  
  A UFO whistleblower has made new claims about the missing Air Force general who vanished in February and his ties to UFOs.
  
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• Travel delays as computer outages disrupt Delta and United flights across US

  06-10-2026 20:17 via dailymail.com
  
  A major travel disruption has been reported as two airline giants experienced system outages that led to flights unable to board passengers.
  
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• European AI flag bearer Mistral's new open weights model is 'Le Chonk'

  06-10-2026 20:03 via theregister.com
  
  Another week brings yet another open weights model and this one is huge — or at least it is for Europe's AI flag bearer Mistral, which has taken to calling the 1 trillion-parameter large language model (LLM) Le Chonk. Its product name is Mistral Large 4, which is a lot less fun than the cat-meme-inspired "very official" moniker Le Chonk. Nonetheless, the LLM is the French model-dev's biggest open weights release ever. At a trillion parameters, Le Chonk is squarely in frontier territory, an
  
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• Trump Mobile customers' data dumped - and some never even received their gold device

  06-10-2026 19:32 via theregister.com
  
  If you signed up for Trump Mobile, you may be part of an exclusive club of … ransomware victims. Criminals called BYOD claim to have broken into the Trump-branded mobile biz and leaked data belonging to 3,615 people, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and order details. BYOD is a new ransomware-as-a-service operation, and Trump Mobile is only the third organization posted on its data-leak site. According to the group’s posted claim, after telling Trump
  
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• NASA targets mysterious hole on the moon in hunt for vast underground cave

  06-10-2026 18:12 via dailymail.com
  
  NASA has announced a new project to hunt for an 'underground structure' that could be lurking deep inside a mysterious pit on the moon's surface.
  
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• Wikimedia Foundation comes forward as latest OpenAI agent assault victim

  06-10-2026 18:04 via theregister.com
  
  Wikipedia’s parent organization says that OpenAI agents edited some non-public wiki pages and generated traffic that may have contributed to a partial Wikidata outage in May. This makes the non-profit just the latest victim of OpenAI agents gone rogue. The Wikimedia Foundation’s chief product and technology officer Selena Deckelmann reported several “rogue agent activities” that the foundation had identified across its various open platforms. While there was no evidence O
  
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• Hurricane threat to US as new models show Gulf storm reaching Category 1 strength in just days

  06-10-2026 17:32 via dailymail.com
  
  Widespread flooding and hurricane-force winds threaten millions as a powerful storm nears the US.
  
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• Holding your breath could REWIRE your brain: Scientists discover divers who plunge underwater without oxygen develop remarkable mental adaptation

  06-10-2026 17:16 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have discovered that freedivers who plunge deep underwater develop incredible mental adaptations that protect neural networks involved in attention, movement and memory.
  
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• Microsoft extends the Outlook naughty step with two more file types

  06-10-2026 17:06 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft is adding two extra file types to its Outlook block list to strengthen security. The file types are .msix and .msixbundle, used for Windows application packages and bundles. The change affects New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the Web in Exchange Online. By default, users of the affected clients will no longer be able to download or open attachments with these extensions, which is no bad thing because blindly installing a malicious .msix package could compromise a device. That sai
  
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• US Households Pay 62% More For Water Than They Did A Decade Ago

  06-10-2026 16:23 via technocracy.news
  
  Technocracy seeks to control all resources, especially those required for life itself: water, energy, food, and air. Now the UN has declared the world bankrupt of water, the language of which requires a receiver to oversee the proceedings. Yet humongous data centers get a free pass on both energy and water, as AI is set to take over metering of those same resources. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.US households are paying 62% more for drinking water than they did a decade ago – outpacing
  
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• Classic Outlook clings to stale search results as Microsoft works on a fix

  06-10-2026 16:10 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft is very keen for Outlook users to ditch the classic version in favor of the new one, and a search bug isn't helping the old client's cause. Results can fail to update after mailbox items are moved or changed, with Microsoft's workaround sending affected users back to Windows Desktop Search. Microsoft has acknowledged the problem. When users move an item from the search results to another folder, it remains listed and produces an error when clicked. Changes to categories or read/unread
  
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• Tech expert reveals the Amazon Prime Day discounts that aren't as good as they seem - and the 'best ever' deals he'd snap up right now

  06-10-2026 15:57 via dailymail.com
  
  We've scoured Amazon's historical prices to find you the deals that are really worth grabbing now, and the ones worth waiting until Black Friday for.
  
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• Zombie instructions on carefully constructed web pages could trick GitHub Copilot CLI into sharing secrets

  06-10-2026 15:00 via theregister.com
  
  GitHub Copilot CLI may reveal developer secrets if it comes across instructions that tell it to do so, depending on the underlying model. The coding agent tool was flagged earlier this year for being susceptible to indirect prompt injection. That's when a model ingests text from a source other than the user that directs it to take some action outside the scope of its intended function. This is more of the same, with a twist. According to security researchers at Adversa AI, GitHub Copilot CLI suf
  
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