Sci-Tech news

• Musk v Altman: What might really be behind failed bid for OpenAI

  17-02-2025 04:50 via bbc.com
  
  Elon Musk's goal might be hindering the growth potential of the AI firm of his rival Sam Altman, experts say.
  
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• Big One fears erupt as San Andreas fault reaches highest stress level in 1,000 years

  18-06-2026 19:56 via dailymail.com
  
  A new study has found historic levels of stress on one of America's most dangerous fault lines that could trigger a world-changing disaster.
  
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• Committed skeptic finds himself warming to new Amazon AI products that actually don't suck

  18-06-2026 19:30 via theregister.com
  
  If you live long enough, you'll wake up one day and find that you're living in a world you no longer understand. Lately there are things happening with AI in a couple of disparate parts of Amazon that brought that lesson home in a big way. The first is that, late last year, they acquired Bee, an AI wearable that is distressingly, upsettingly good. The second, which I want to talk about today as I fly back from AWS's NYC Summit, is Quick Desktop. The best way to describe this is "Enterprise OpenC
  
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• Citrix now lets you run virtual desktops like a cost-conscious private equityeer

  18-06-2026 18:59 via theregister.com
  
  Your next work PC could live in the cloud. A couple of years ago, the Cloud Software Group – the private-equity-owned vendor that mashed up Citrix with Tibco – built a tool to analyze the ideal desktop environment for its users, a cost-control exercise aimed at ensuring it wasn’t spending big on under-utilized endpoints. Last month, the company productized the result and put it on sale under the name “Citrix DaaS Flex.” The product is effectively a front for Citrix&
  
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• Iran: The Goal Was Always Reintegration, Not Containment

  18-06-2026 18:06 via technocracy.news
  
  I have said countless times that Technocracy moves on infrastructure, not outright confrontation. The Iran war is a case in point.
  The American people watched a war and waited for a victory. They are still waiting, because the thing they were promised and the thing that was delivered are not the same thing. They expected containment. They expected an adversary beaten back, a nuclear program dismantled, a hostile regime made smaller. What they received was a reconstruction contract.
  The Iran sett
  
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• Canonical reveals Myna, its local speech-to-text app

  18-06-2026 18:04 via theregister.com
  
  Canonical has published more details about the local speech-to-text engine that will take dictation in the forthcoming Ubuntu version 26.10, aka "Stonking Stingray." In a post on the company’s Discourse forums on Wednesday, the outfit named one of the most significant new elements that’s coming in the next version: Myna: Speech to Text for Ubuntu Desktop. Earlier this month, we reported from the Ubuntu Summit that Canonical was going big on AI and that one of the first signs would be
  
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• NASA payload to ride commercial Mars orbiter from rocket biz yet to reach orbit

  18-06-2026 17:25 via theregister.com
  
  It might not yet have reached Earth orbit, but Relativity Space has announced plans for a mission to Mars carrying a NASA payload. The mission, dubbed Aeolus and scheduled for 2028, will launch a Mars orbiter carrying four NASA-built instruments. Relativity Space will supply the rocket, spacecraft, and cruise operations, while NASA will deal with the payload. The four instruments comprise a Doppler wind and temperature-sounder, a thermal limb sounder, a surface radiometric sensor package, and a
  
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• ZTE and China Telecom Guangdong advance cross‑vendor IP network simulation pilots, paving the way for intelligent network operations

  18-06-2026 17:21 via theregister.com
  
  ZTE announced that China Telecom Guangdong has officially released the E‑Surfing Simulation 2.0 – Cross‑Vendor IP Network Simulation Standard at the Talent & Expertise Development Forum (Peizhi Talent Empowerment Initiative) hosted by the company. Built on the joint simulation system co-developed by ZTE and China Telecom Guangdong, the standard applies digital twin technology to form a closed‑loop workflow from change submission through simulation verification to impl
  
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• 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
  
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• Google told researcher 'Nice catch!' Then denied bug bounty for flaw it still hasn't fixed

  18-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  EXCLUSIVE Google has a security hole in a Kubernetes operator that could allow attackers to bypass Google Cloud Platform (GCP) identity and access protections and gain full control over any organization's cloud environment. Or it has a serious communication and transparency problem when it comes to its bug bounty programs.Maybe both. Researcher and frequent cloud bug hunter Justin O'Leary told us that he found and reported to Google a major flaw that allows any Kubernetes namespace user to bypas
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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?
  
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• 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
  
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• 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
  
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• 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
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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
  
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• 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
  
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• 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
  
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• 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.
  
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• 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
  
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