Sci-Tech news

• Scotland's wildcat on brink of extinction - research

  03-05-2023 18:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  NatureScot warned there are likely too few pure-bred Scottish wildcats for the population to be viable.
  
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• Never miss a connection again! Incredible map shows where every tube, train, boat and bus is in London in real-time

  26-06-2026 12:02 via dailymail.com
  
  Any commuter will be familiar with the frustration of just missing a bus or watching their train pull away from the platform. But a new map promises to make travelling around London a little easier.
  
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• Space Shuttle Endeavour stacks up nicely for new California exhibit

  26-06-2026 12:00 via theregister.com
  
  The California Science Center has unveiled its Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibit, featuring the retired spacecraft mounted in launch position with the familiar orange external tank and twin solid rocket boosters. The exhibit will be housed in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is due to open on November 13, 2026, after a multi-year construction effort. Endeavour arrived at the California Science Center in 2012 after an overland journey from LAX. Following several years parked in what ca
  
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• Huge asteroid a MILE wide will zoom past Earth tomorrow - here's how to spot it

  26-06-2026 11:38 via dailymail.com
  
  A huge asteroid measuring a mile across will zoom past Earth in an exceptionally close pass tomorrow.
  
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• Planning a staycation? Pick up the latest games and toys for less from Amazon to stay entertained this summer - from a classic board game to a £600 best-selling LEGO set

  26-06-2026 11:36 via dailymail.com
  
  It's finally that time to grab some outstanding deals in this year's Amazon Prime Day sale.
  
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• Three FOSS projects for developers, procrastinators, and media wranglers

  26-06-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  As the mercury climbs to disgusting heights, The Reg FOSS desk has picked out a few FOSS highlights from its overflowing mailbox, in case you fancy some Super Productivity while monitoring your AI habit. Prism Carbon Tracker The Prism carbon tracker is a neat idea for helping to instill a tiny bit of self control in the more dedicated botlickers on your development team. It's a plugin that integrates into Visual Studio Code. As the developer uses various "online coding assistants," Prism shows a
  
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• BOFH: Amnesty means never having to say you're sorry

  26-06-2026 10:27 via theregister.com
  
  EPISODE 12 "What's everybody here for?" the Boss asks, peering worriedly at the long line of people extending out of the wedged-open door of Mission Control, continuing on down the corridor. "It's the amnesty," the PFY replies. "The amnesty?" "Oh, I forget!" the PFY says. "You've not been here that long. Every year or so we run an amnesty, where users can fess up to damaging, destroying, or losing our equipment, no questions asked." "No questions?" "Well, typically they'll explain what they did,
  
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• Security boss thought MFA would be too much security

  26-06-2026 08:30 via theregister.com
  
  ON CALL Supporting IT and keeping it secure is a serious endeavor. Which is why The Register lightens up Friday mornings with a fresh installment of On Call, the reader-contributed column that shares your tales of tech support trauma. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Colin" who told us about a recent gig at a customer that decided to improve the security of its Microsoft 365 implementation – chasing the Secure Score that Redmond uses to rate resilience. "We spent a good amount o
  
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• Microsoft extends extended updates for Windows 10 in the most muted way imaginable

  26-06-2026 07:35 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has oh-so-quietly extended its offer of extended security updates for consumer users of Windows 10. The Windows giant ended support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, when it stopped shipping fixes and updates – unless users coughed up for an extended patch package. Redmond’s offer for business users includes an option for an extra three years of support, albeit with ratcheting costs that demonstrate Microsoft has an enormous preference for customers to adopt Windows 11. C
  
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• Chinese cybersecurity company claims it’s built a better-than-Mythos bug finder

  26-06-2026 03:49 via theregister.com
  
  Chinese cybersecurity vendor Qihoo 360 claims it’s built an AI bug-finder that’s better than Anthropic’s Mythos model. CEO Zhou Hongyi revealed the model in a speech at the 14th Beijing Cybersecurity Conference, which Qihoo 360 organizes. Chinese media outlets have transcribed the talk, in which Zhou described Mythos as “equivalent to a ‘cyber nuclear weapon’,” because the USA’s ban on foreign nationals accessing the model gives America a tool with
  
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• How Trump’s New Quantum EO Locks Technocracy Into Place

  26-06-2026 02:35 via technocracy.news
  
  Trump signed Executive Orders, Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation and Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks on the same day.
  A “whole-of-government” approach to quantum computing
  The two goals: to optimize economic activity and to secure all internet traffic, transactions and data with new cryptographic algorithms
  Quantum computing sets the final lock for TechnocracyWho cares about quantum computers, anyway? Are they just smoke and mirrors? Are
  
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• AI giants back non-profit to retrain workers left behind by AI

  26-06-2026 01:16 via theregister.com
  
  AI-POCALYPSE Several leading US AI companies joined with former US government officials on Thursday to form a bipartisan coalition focused on helping to prepare workers for the AI tsunami, even as many companies seem to be in a race to see who can replace human workers the fastest. Founded by former US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, RAISE US aims to "design and pilot new corporate incentives to retrain and redeploy workers, new approaches to support pe
  
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• Self-destructing Mistic backdoor linked to access broker selling corporate footholds to ransomware gangs

  26-06-2026 00:26 via theregister.com
  
  A new self-destructing backdoor called Mistic used in intrusions since April appears to be linked to a criminal gang that compromises corporate networks and then sells that access to ransomware groups, according to security researchers. This backdoor, also tracked as MLTBackdoor, was first documented by Zscaler earlier this month, with the security shop suggesting the novel malware is “likely used in ransomware attacks to establish a foothold for lateral movement.” In a Wednesday thr
  
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• They read the scroll thing! AI helps decipher ancient document charred by Vesuvius

  25-06-2026 23:18 via theregister.com
  
  A sealed scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago, has finally given up its secrets, thanks to a combination of machine learning and high-resolution CT scans. In 2023, researchers managed to decipher a few words from among the char and ash that make up the bulk of the scrolls. Some of those same prize-winning researchers recovered more passages from one of the scrolls, PHerc.Paris.4, netting them the $700,000 grand prize fr
  
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• Ex-Huntress analyst claims company insider fed info to a ransomware crim. Social media drama ensues

  25-06-2026 22:36 via theregister.com
  
  Security firm Huntress allegedly has a turncoat insider leaking info to a ransomware operation, according to an ex-employee who took his grievances to social media after claiming the security shop tried to “silence” him with legal threats. And it all started with a Pinocchio GIF and clown emoji. Late last week, Huntress disclosed that it is among the “hundreds of Klue customers” compromised in the supply-chain attack, stating that “Huntress believes in radical trans
  
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• OpenAI says employees moving beyond chat to agents

  25-06-2026 21:58 via theregister.com
  
  A company can learn a lot about the market by looking at its own employees. OpenAI says that its team members are switching from chatbots to agents as their primary form of AI interaction, a trend also detected (though less pronounced) among external organizations and users. Instead of one-off ChatGPT prompts, workers are asking Codex agents to tackle multi-step tasks that take long periods of time. And those doing so are increasingly non-developers. OpenAI insists that its findings have implica
  
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• Hidden earthquake threat discovered beneath California could unleash devastating magnitude 7 tremor

  25-06-2026 21:16 via dailymail.com
  
  Geologists have confirmed a hidden earthquake threat lurking beneath California that could unleash widespread devastation if it awakens.
  
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• Perseverance rover finds even more signs of extinct life on Mars

  25-06-2026 20:38 via theregister.com
  
  Yet another Martian rock formation has revealed what may be signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. While these findings aren't as scientist-wowing as those reported last year, they add to growing evidence that ancient Mars contained organic carbon and may once have been habitable. An international team of scientists working on examining Martian rock samples collected and analyzed by the Perseverance rover reported in Science Advances Wednesday that they’d found signs of macromolecular ca
  
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• Eerie 'apocalyptic' sounds heard on Mount Shasta lead horseback riders to bizarre discovery

  25-06-2026 19:23 via dailymail.com
  
  Few places in America have a reputation as mysterious as Mount Shasta, and one California family recently experienced why firsthand.
  
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• Calls for government action on chemical pollution

  25-06-2026 18:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Cherwell District Council leader urges forever chemical pollution action around former RAF base.
  
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• Grotesque 'zombie squirrels' with oozing flesh pods spark alarm across the US

  25-06-2026 17:49 via dailymail.com
  
  Reports of 'zombie squirrels' lurking in Americans' backyards have surged in recent weeks. These animals are found with oozing sores on their bodies and patchy fur.
  
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• That's bananas! Hilarious recordings reveal how great apes LAUGH in a similar rhythm to humans

  25-06-2026 17:23 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have discovered another thing we have in common with our closest living relatives: our laugh.
  
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• FOSS dev builds a BASIC compiler using LLVM

  25-06-2026 17:10 via theregister.com
  
  Neither LLVM nor GCC directly support the BASIC programming language – but a former Microware boffin proposes fixing that. An interesting new proposal on the Discourse forum of the LLVM compiler suite has turned into a new standalone BASIC compiler. The original RFC was Adding BASIC09 frontend tool to LLVM. Author Boisy Petre proposed adding a front-end to enable LLVM to compile BASIC source code, and this has now turned into a standalone compiler called basic09c, which uses LLVM as a libr
  
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• That's bananas! Great apes LAUGH in a similar rhythm to humans, study reveals

  25-06-2026 17:00 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have discovered another thing we have in common with our closest living relatives: our laugh.
  
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• Recovery has to keep up with AI

  25-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  AI agents now write code and run tasks at machine speed, and sometimes those same agents delete the wrong thing. AI-enabled attackers can also use AI to find zero-day vulnerabilities more easily. Most recovery systems still run at human speed, which widens the gap between how fast data can be lost and how fast it can be restored. Eon was built to close that gap. In our latest Hot Seat, Tim Phillips talks to Gonen Stein, president and co-founder of Eon, about what recovery should look like in the
  
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• Apple passes RAMpocalypse costs on to consumers

  25-06-2026 16:48 via theregister.com
  
  The online Apple Store went offline Thursday morning, but instead of such a move marking the launch of upgraded products, it came back online with nothing new to offer but higher prices. The budget-priced MacBook Neo wasn’t even spared from the spike, with its entry-level price climbing from $599 to $699. Along with the Neo, entry-level MacBook Air prices rose by $200 and base MacBook Pro machines increased by $300, putting the lowest-spec machines in the lines at $1,299 and $1,999, respec
  
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• Auto Workers v. Robots: Epic Battle Brewing Between UAW And GM

  25-06-2026 16:35 via technocracy.news
  
  I have long thought that unions might play a part in pushing back against Technocracy, and here they are. Auto workers are already organized, assertive, very vocal, and very visible when they take to the streets. They have proven ability to bring corporate giants to their knees. By contrast, when office workers are displaced by AI, they disappear into the woodwork. This demonstrates the power of numbers. Hopefully, it is not too little and too late. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.General Motors ha
  
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• Windows 11 can now turn back the clock when updates go bad

  25-06-2026 16:29 via theregister.com
  
  Users with hopelessly borked Windows devices have a new avenue of recovery in the form of point-in-time restore for Windows 11. The service is designed to restore a Windows 11 PC to its exact state at an earlier point in time and is accessed through the Troubleshoot menu in the Windows Recovery Environment. According to Microsoft, each restore point covers the operating system, apps, settings, and local files. It is stored locally and automatically deleted after 72 hours or when free disk space
  
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• Apple takes over Swift Package Index, vows to remove GitHub dependency

  25-06-2026 16:01 via theregister.com
  
  The Swift Package Index (SPI), a search engine for open source packages for the Swift programming language, is now part of Apple, though it will remain open source. Dave Verwer, who created SPI over six years ago along with Sven A. Schmidt, said on Mastodon that "I'll be joining Apple to continue working on everything related to Swift packages." Apple senior product manager Dave Lester said that SPI has become an "essential part of the Swift ecosystem" and referenced the intent to build a compre
  
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• In pictures: Britain swelters in record-breaking June heat

  25-06-2026 15:48 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A rare red weather warning is in place as extreme temperatures continue across much of the UK.
  
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