Sci-Tech news

• See tiny newborn meerkats explore zoo enclosure

  25-05-2023 02:15 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Smithsonian’s National Zoo is celebrating the birth of meerkat pups for the first time in 16 years.
  
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• Smartphone market to shrink 15 percent this year due to memory crisis

  17-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  Unless your personal tech budget has bloated, prepare to stick with your current smartphone for a while thanks to AI-driven demand that has driven up memory prices and made new handsets so expensive that sales are falling dramatically. So says research firm CCS Insight, which expects smartphone shipments to fall by 15 percent this year as some entry-level devices have already seen their sticker prices go up by more than 50 percent since last year. The firm found that the primary smartphone marke
  
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• Digital sovereignty needs an operating model

  17-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  Europe, like much of the world, is living through a period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty in which sanctions risk, legal divergence, and cyber disruption have moved from abstract concerns to board-level variables. Digital sovereignty is shifting from aspiration to operational requirement, driven by resilience expectations, critical service dependency, and rising geopolitical and cyber risk. Definitions of sovereignty vary, ranging from blanket data localization edicts to industrial polic
  
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• AWS hypes continuous agentic DevOps, puts Kiro in your pocket

  17-06-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  AWS today introduced new and enhanced agents aimed at DevOps and code security at its New York Summit, including previews of Continuum for identifying and fixing application vulnerabilities, and an iOS mobile app for its Kiro coding tool. Matt Wood, chief AI and technology officer, said in a press briefing that the company sees AI tools operating continuously in the background, rather than being used on demand. AWS Continuum, now in closed preview, is a set of agents that "continually provide se
  
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• Noah's Ark could finally be found after historic deal promises 'irrefutable proof'

  17-06-2026 16:53 via dailymail.com
  
  A boat-shaped formation on a remote mountainside in eastern Turkey has reignited one of history's most enduring biblical mysteries.
  
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• Surface tension rises as Microsoft's latest kit starts at a pricey $1,499

  17-06-2026 16:25 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has unveiled new Surface hardware at prices that could keep customers away until the hardware supply chain sorts itself out. Two devices were announced – a new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X2 silicon. The 13-inch Pro has, according to Microsoft, 53 percent faster graphics performance than the previous generation, and the 13.8 and 15-inch Laptop deliver 58 percent better graphics performance. The batteries should last all day, and the touchpad on the Laptop featu
  
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• Cisco adds another SD-WAN box to max-severity bug advisory

  17-06-2026 15:45 via theregister.com
  
  Cisco has updated a February security advisory, adding another product to the list of those affected by the maximum-severity CVE-2026-20127. Switchzilla made a small amendment to the original advisory on Tuesday evening, noting that Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Validator, formerly vBond, was also among the boxes attackers could pop open. Readers may remember the fuss over CVE-2026-20127 (10.0) a few months ago. The make-me-admin improper authentication flaw prompted a Five Eyes alert since attackers co
  
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• Homebrew 6.0 released with new security mechanism, Linux sandbox and more

  17-06-2026 15:31 via theregister.com
  
  The Homebrew team has released version 6.0 of this popular open-source package manager for macOS and Linux, with a new mechanism for trusting packages and support for sandboxing on Linux, to align with existing sandboxing on macOS. Homebrew 6.0 introduces tap trust, a "tap" being a collection of formulae, casks (a package of pre-compiled binaries) and commands which usually reside in a Git repository. The tool trusts official Homebrew taps by default, but requires an explicit agreement before it
  
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• Apple's WebKit performance tax leaves iOS browsers stuck in the slow lane, says Microsoft

  17-06-2026 15:02 via theregister.com
  
  Critics and competitors have long complained about the "Apple Tax" – the sales commission developers are obliged to pay on App Store sales and in-app purchases. Now Microsoft engineers have documented a performance tax – the performance hit that iOS users today endure because Apple requires iOS browsers, with theoretical exceptions, to use the WebKit browser engine that powers Safari. The performance tax comes to 28.6 percent, almost as much as Apple's 30 percent commission rate. Bro
  
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• Millions told to prepare NOW as Tropical Storm Warning is issued along US coast: 'Arthur is coming'

  17-06-2026 14:47 via dailymail.com
  
  Meteorologists have warned millions along the US coast to prepare for life-threatening weather as a system could soon develop into a tropical storm.
  
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• Intel starts cooking up enhanced 18A-P silicon for would-be foundry customers

  17-06-2026 14:14 via theregister.com
  
  While Intel ramps up production of its 18A process node, the chipmaker has started limited output of its enhanced variant, 18A-P, promising 9 percent higher performance at the same power. At the IEEE's 2026 VLSI Symposium in Hawaii, Intel disclosed that it has started risk production using 18A-P, the first of its planned enhancements for the 18A process, and potentially the first to be used for commercial customers of Intel's foundry biz. Risk production refers to initial low-volume output to qu
  
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• Windows devs rerolled old code to save precious bytes

  17-06-2026 14:01 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft's latest Windows update might or might not have improved performance for the company's flagship operating system, but there was a time when its engineers cared about performance. A lot. Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen on Monday hearked back to that time by telling another war story from the glory days of Windows, when a team was working on an x86-32 emulator for an unnamed processor (though it isn't particularly difficult to identify potential candidates). The emulator used bin
  
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• Do you have the 'M factor'? Scientists warn of emerging syndrome linked to violence and misogyny - and say 20% of men have it

  17-06-2026 13:57 via dailymail.com
  
  You've heard of The X Factor...but what about the M factor? Scientists are using this name to describe an emerging syndrome linked to violence and misogyny.
  
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• Who will win the World Cup? Mathematician's 11 models predict four possible champions (but NOT England!)

  17-06-2026 13:44 via dailymail.com
  
  England's World Cup journey begins tonight, but a mathematician warns that fans shouldn't get their hopes up.
  
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• Snap unveils £1,995 smart glasses after previous flops

  17-06-2026 13:37 via bbc.com
  
  The augmented reality glasses from Snapchat's parent company are expected to ship in autumn.
  
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• UK.gov links up with LinkedIn for jobs market intel from 40M accounts

  17-06-2026 13:30 via theregister.com
  
  The UK's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will draw on 40 million UK LinkedIn accounts to get a better understanding of local job markets. DWP said it plans to use anonymized data to help it find trends such as mismatches between local job ads and the skills possessed by local people. The department won't scrape the Microsoft-owned social network, instead relying on Redmond to analyze data and pass its findings to Skills England, a DWP agency whose officials are already working on the proj
  
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• Brit competition cops order Google to make search rankings less mysterious

  17-06-2026 13:01 via theregister.com
  
  The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed two new conduct requirements for Google's search services, to improve transparency and fairness in result rankings and allowing users to port their search data to third parties. The requirements follow the CMA's actions in early June that let publishers opt out of having their work appear in AI Overviews, while requiring attribution and clear links to sources. "More activity is expected over the summer," the regulator warned. The fair
  
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• Helpdesk scammers are making house calls to make their lies feel more real

  17-06-2026 12:38 via theregister.com
  
  Six people suspected of bank helpdesk fraud are in custody after Dutch cops stormed an Amsterdam residence and caught them in conversation with a potential victim. Police say the individuals were aged between 15 and 30 and operated out of a makeshift call center they had established in an Amsterdam home. Authorities believe the accused committed bank helpdesk fraud, which has become increasingly popular across the Netherlands. Offenders were recently targeted as part of Game Over?!, a novel law
  
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• Revealed: Europe's DIRTIEST beaches where the water quality is rated as 'poor' - with Albania's shores at the top of the list

  17-06-2026 12:07 via dailymail.com
  
  If you've booked a holiday to Albania this summer, you might want to think twice before heading for a dip in the sea.
  
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• Windows update leaves third-party Office document launches in limbo

  17-06-2026 11:56 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft's June Windows update has upset some third-party applications that use Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) automation to open or control Office apps, leaving users with failed document launches and, in some cases, no error message to explain what went wrong. According to Microsoft, "reports indicate that this issue may affect applications such as CCH Engagement, Workpaper Manager, dental software (such as Dentrix and Softdent), and Zotero; other similar applications might also be impact
  
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• Why Botticelli's Birth of Venus has a wonky eye: Scientists claim the model for the world-renowned painting had a brain tumour that caused a squint

  17-06-2026 11:17 via dailymail.com
  
  According to researchers from Queen Mary, University of London, Simonetta Vespucci - the model for the world-renowned painting - had a brain tumour that caused a squint.
  
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• System76 boss reckons he can liberate the entire PC stack... just give him another 15 years

  17-06-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  INTERVIEW There are only a handful of dedicated Linux PC vendors. One of the best-known is the 20-year-old American company System76. It's not just a business that installs Linux on PCs. System76 is building something rare in 2026: a vertically integrated Linux‑first computing stack that treats open source as an engineering north star, not just marketing copy.We spoke to founder and CEO Carl Richell about where System76 began and where it's going. When Richell started System76 20 years ago
  
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• Tesco is sprinting to quit VMware and Broadcom despite rapid migration risks

  17-06-2026 09:30 via theregister.com
  
  UK retail giant Tesco is replacing VMware with an alternative product and pressing ahead with its licensing lawsuit against the virtualization pioneer's parent company, Broadcom, in a matter due to be heard by the UK's High Court starting in November 2027. The roots of the matter are a January 2021 contract that saw Tesco acquire perpetual licenses for VMware's vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation products, plus subscriptions to Virtzilla's Tanzu products. The supermarket giant also signed up
  
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• Developers build the best tools for developers – and are now defanging the AI menace

  17-06-2026 08:31 via theregister.com
  
  Forty years ago, while working for a tiny subsidiary of a gigantic telco, I stumbled through pre-Git source code management and tried to avoid explosively devolving into a mess of conflicts after every merge. Thankfully, modern practices make it possible to work in massive, distributed teams, swarming around a codebase, working independently toward a collective goal. That sounds a lot like what we're heading toward with agents, and here it touches a nerve: nearly everyone in software engineering
  
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• Global Trade: Two Rails to Medina

  17-06-2026 04:24 via technocracy.news
  
  If Trump follows through on his promises to Iran, he will be handing the Mullahs the keys to a competing trade corridor with IMEC, called the “International North-South Transport Corridor”, or INSTC, and would totally bypass Israel altogether. Many in America are calling it an outright betrayal of Israel. ⁃ Patrick Wood Editor.The Ottoman pilgrimage railway is being resurrected twice — by rivals. The rivalry is the bait. The architecture both rails install is the tra
  
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• Cyberattack sees crops kept in the ground

  17-06-2026 04:16 via theregister.com
  
  A cyberattack on Australia’s second-largest sugar producer has forced farmers to keep crops in the ground, and looks like denting their incomes. Mackay Sugar, based in the Australian state of Queensland, processes sugar cane farmed in nearby districts. The company disclosed a cyberattack on June 10 and limited operations while it dealt with the fallout. Some operations remain restricted, but the company said on Monday that it managed to perform some manual crushing at its Farleigh Mill sit
  
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• Spielberg said Disclosure Day would shake Christian faith... instead it finally answered the ultimate question about what aliens mean for God, says UFO researcher

  17-06-2026 01:26 via dailymail.com
  
  If extraterrestrial life were confirmed, what would it mean for Christianity? The UFO investigator noted that disclosure advocates have long debated the potential fallout of such a revelation.
  
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• AMD's Mext buy shows how AI could solve the RAM shortage it created

  17-06-2026 00:09 via theregister.com
  
  With no end in sight to the memory crunch, AMD thinks that AI, the main cause of the shortage, could be part of the solution. This week, the House of Zen acquired predictive memory startup Mext for an undisclosed sum, setting the stage for a world where bots decide which data to put into RAM and which to store in less-expensive flash. Founded in 2023, the Mext proactive memory platform uses machine learning algorithms and learned heuristics to proactively offload "cold" memory to flash storage,
  
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• Missing scientist's skull reveals new clue about her death as ex-FBI agent raises shocking theory

  16-06-2026 22:54 via dailymail.com
  
  New details have emerged in the death investigation of nuclear lab worker Melissa Casias, as a former FBI agent presents a disturbing new theory of how she died.
  
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• The new Siri makes one of Apple's most convenient OS features a cumbersome mess

  16-06-2026 22:47 via theregister.com
  
  HANDS ON That new AI-juiced Siri that Apple rolled out last week at WWDC was supposed to set a new paradigm for on-device AI. But don't believe the hype coming out of Tim Cook's final big event. After a week-long test drive, it seems like Apple just crammed Google AI Overviews on top of the most useful parts of its various operating systems and made the whole ecosystem more cumbersome to use. But hey, it has more AIs! I’ve been running the iOS and macOS 27 developer betas since they were m
  
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