Sci-Tech news

• Small gestures make people feel more loved says research

  06-11-2017 16:31 via dailymail.co.uk
  
  Researchers from Penn State's College of Health and Human Development found people were in agreement that there was more authenticity in loving actions than saying loving things (stock image).
  
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• AI agents hacked the hackers, stealing email addresses from security research org

  01-10-2026 23:26 via theregister.com
  
  AI agents hacked the hackers - the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) - via two zero-day bugs in its Zammad support platform, abusing the flaws to hijack sessions, run code remotely as the local zammad user, and escalate privileges to root. The chained exploits took just seconds to move from session hijacking to root access, and on Thursday, the nonprofit bug hunting organization said the miscreants stole data belonging to its volunteer security researchers, including DIVD email
  
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• Cloudflare tries to outplay Jev with open-weight Clef models

  01-10-2026 22:39 via theregister.com
  
  Two weeks after the Jev model took the AI world by storm, Cloudflare has released its own pair of "Clef" decision models that it claims are smarter and faster than Jev, while also being open weight and runnable locally. The Clef family of decision models was announced by Cloudflare on Thursday, and consists of two models: Clef and Clef-flash, a slightly smaller and faster version of the model. For all intents and purposes, they work the same way as TypeSafe’s Jev, in that they can answer t
  
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• Stanford prof is beating the drum for a new protocol to replace TCP

  01-10-2026 22:00 via theregister.com
  
  TCP, the data transport protocol upon which pretty much the entire web and most of cloud computing is built, is ill-suited for emerging AI workloads, a retired Stanford University professor argues. To solve the problem, he's promoting a new protocol called Homa. “TCP, for all the amazing things it has done, is not a good match for datacenters,” said John Ousterhout, a professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University, in a recent talk at the AI Engineer World’s Fair
  
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• Cloudflare launches Data Platform with bland 'Basin' branding, promise of fewer fees

  01-10-2026 21:17 via theregister.com
  
  Cloudflare Data Platform on Thursday received a bland new brand name, Basin, and promotion from beta status to general availability. Under the tub-themed moniker, Cloudflare Pipelines, R2 Data Catalog, and R2 SQL become Basin Pipelines, Basin Catalog, and Basin SQL respectively. The company's evocation of washroom fixtures doesn't quite align with its stable of more literal product names – Sandboxes, Workers, Email Services, and so on. But given that the occasion is Cloudflare Birthday Wee
  
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• Scientists uncover hidden force deep inside Earth that is changing the length of our days

  01-10-2026 21:15 via dailymail.com
  
  Scientists have discovered a hidden force deep inside Earth that is changing the length of our days.
  
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• Air Force veteran makes wild claim on Joe Rogan of a secret UFO base spanning 'multiple city blocks' at the bottom of the ocean

  01-10-2026 19:48 via dailymail.com
  
  An Air Force veteran has revealed shocking new details of an alleged underwater invasion the military has known about for years.
  
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• Has Noah's Ark finally been found? Researchers claim mysterious underground structure is man-made after dramatic new scans

  01-10-2026 19:47 via dailymail.com
  
  A research project has made a groundbreaking announcement that the site believed to be the exact location of Noah's Ark may actually contain a wooden ship.
  
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• Prince of Wales tells villagers 'holistic' approach is needed to tackle flooding

  01-10-2026 19:43 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Prince William visits residents of Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, who have faced four floods in six years.
  
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• EU’s hodgepodge tech policy exposes members to Chinese vendor risks, says think tank

  01-10-2026 19:30 via theregister.com
  
  Depending on Chinese technology for European infrastructure poses risks that not every country takes seriously. So says the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which suggests that the EU needs to do better in helping members assess the risk and take appropriate action to safeguard the entire bloc. The UK-based think tank said in a report today that the EU should develop a new risk assessment framework that applies to all members and strengthens its own powers, without encroaching on members&
  
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• Hurricane-fueled storms threaten 80 million TODAY as eight US states brace for life-threatening flash floods

  01-10-2026 19:11 via dailymail.com
  
  More than 80 million Americans have been told to brace for life-threatening conditions as hurricane-fueled storms unleash torrential rain across parts of the US.
  
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• Suspected Chinese spies spoofed an Anthropic exec, ex-White House official in AI phishing

  01-10-2026 18:43 via theregister.com
  
  A suspected Chinese espionage group impersonated AI policy figures, including a senior Anthropic employee and a former White House official, in phishing campaigns targeting AI policy experts at US universities, think tanks, and law firms, security researchers say. The bulk of these campaigns occurred in July, according to Proofpoint, which discovered the espionage attempts and attributed them to a China-aligned group it tracks as TA419. Proofpoint’s security alert comes a day after OpenAI
  
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• SpaceX launches crew to ISS

  01-10-2026 18:32 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral with two Americans, a Russian and a Canadian who will spend up to six months aboard the International Space Station.
  
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• AWS offers local, open source leash for agent harnesses

  01-10-2026 18:11 via theregister.com
  
  If you don't want your AI agents running out of control and changing files or transferring data outside your rules, AWS has published an open source software library that it claims can add a new layer of policy control. Just as a dog’s harness is useless without a leash to keep it under control, the Dogwood Local Engine promises to put AI agent tool calls on a leash, blocking actions that don’t meet user-defined temporal conditions. The DLE comes in the form of a Rust library that ca
  
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• King Of AI Behind Donald Trump: UAEs Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan?

  01-10-2026 17:34 via technocracy.news
  
  Zayed Al Nahyan is at least an influencer over Trump, if not the puppeteer. This is the “silent partner” in Trump’s World Liberty Financial with a 49% interest, which was hidden from the American public for almost a year. He figured prominently in my book, The Economics of Technocracy, as the Sheik who wants to dominate AI and Fintech globally. His wealth, power, and global influence make Trump look like a wannabe. He is the nexus between Islamic finance and the privatized asse
  
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• Microsoft makes Windows settings backup the default in 26H2

  01-10-2026 17:31 via theregister.com
  
  Windows 11 26H2 is out, and Microsoft has enabled Windows settings backup by default, a move that could send administrators scrambling to opt out where they once had to opt in. The latest release hasn't made a lot of shockwaves in the community featurewise. Users with up-to-date versions of 25H2 will unlikely notice much difference – 26H2 has the same code base, delivered via an enablement package. It even has the same set of known issues, although all are now "mitigated" in one way or ano
  
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• Sorry, blondes! Women with darker hair are judged more attractive and healthier-looking, study finds

  01-10-2026 17:30 via dailymail.com
  
  For decades, blondes have been told they have more fun - but when it comes to attractiveness, brunettes may be getting the last laugh.
  
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• Build the right AI factory for your needs: partner for success

  01-10-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  AI ambition is easy to describe - using data and models to improve decisions, automate work, accelerate discovery, or create new services. Delivering those outcomes is harder and takes a significant amount of experience to be successful. Training a frontier model, fine-tuning an industry model, running high-volume inference and supporting agentic AI place different demands on infrastructure, processes and people. Implementing AI may include a single-purpose turnkey configuration that will accomm
  
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• Microsoft catches hackers exploiting Zimbra bug before disclosure

  01-10-2026 16:44 via theregister.com
  
  Attackers were poking at a critical Zimbra mail server bug weeks before it was publicly disclosed, and then moved on to steal credentials, raid mailboxes, and take deeper control of compromised systems. Microsoft Threat Intelligence said it tracked exploitation of CVE-2026-73570, an unauthenticated command injection vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration Suite that gives attackers a potentially easy route into exposed mail servers. No stolen password or unfortunate employee clicking a dodgy link
  
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• Trump to name AI czar within days: ‘We will have somebody extraordinary’

  01-10-2026 16:29 via technocracy.news
  
  Every candidate on the short list is mentioned prominently in The Final Betrayal: How Technocracy Destroyed America. What is Trump thinking about establishing the AI Force?  Will this fall under the Department of Defense to be weaponized against Americans? Technocracy is turning ugly and has set its sights on capturing the whole enchilada: the Government, the financial system, the rationing of resources, and control over all citizens. Just like 1930s Technocrats, look for calls to dismiss C
  
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• MI5 warns UK academics their research may have helped Chinese spies

  01-10-2026 16:04 via theregister.com
  
  MI5 has warned that more than 100 UK-linked academics contributed to research projects allegedly funded to improve China's spying capabilities. The Security Service issued an unusually public espionage alert this week naming the China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI), also translated as the China Academy of General Technology (CAGT). MI5 says the organization has "very strong ties" to China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country's civilian intelligence agency. According to
  
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• CISO thought he had a 'r3@lg00dp@$$w0rd' but forgot to patch

  01-10-2026 15:32 via theregister.com
  
  Welcome back to PWNED, the weekly column where we warn you about weak security practices. This week’s terrifying tale involves a lack of important patching and a humorously bad password belonging to the person in charge of tech security at a law firm. Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at [email protected]. Anonymity is available upon request. Our story comes courtesy of Joe Brinkley, who also is known as “The Blind Hacker” and ha
  
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• Bluetongue restriction zone to be expanded across all of Scotland

  01-10-2026 15:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Scottish government said the decision will simplify trading for farmers, hauliers, and auction markets.
  
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• Exchange Web Services enters the final stretch before Microsoft pulls access

  01-10-2026 14:59 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft begins disabling Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Exchange Online today, ahead of the API's permanent retirement on April 1, 2027. Introduced with Exchange Server 2007, EWS allows applications to access mailbox data including email, calendars, and contacts. Microsoft says the service "no longer aligns with today's security, scale, or reliability requirements" and recommends moving integrations to Microsoft Graph, although some capability gaps remain. Beginning October 1, Microsoft will s
  
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• Palantir's Tom Watson lectures MP on accuracy, citing selective data

  01-10-2026 14:41 via theregister.com
  
  Palantir's newly appointed UK senior vice president Tom Watson has accused Labour MP Clive Lewis of making "incorrect claims" about the company – while repeating NHS performance figures that the statistics regulator has said require careful caveats. Watson, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, advised Palantir from 2024 before joining it full-time last month. He now works alongside Louis Mosley, the company's executive vice president for the UK and Europe. His letter to Lewis was
  
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• Britain's most iconic dogs are disappearing: Owners swap Old English Sheepdogs, Collies and Bloodhounds for fashionable designer crossbreeds

  01-10-2026 14:09 via dailymail.com
  
  Anew analysis suggests many of the nation's most iconic breeds are disappearing from family homes, as owners increasingly opt for fashionable designer crossbreeds instead.
  
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• England's schools are getting better at mopping up cyber incidents

  01-10-2026 13:40 via theregister.com
  
  England's secondary schools are reporting slightly fewer cybersecurity incidents and faster recovery when disaster strikes, according to a survey by exams regulator Ofqual. Twenty-seven percent of schools reported an incident during the 2025/26 academic year, down from 29 percent a year earlier and 34 percent in 2023/24. Ofqual surveyed 3,775 secondary teachers in England in July. For questions concerning whole schools, it counted one response from the most senior participating teacher at each i
  
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• Going up! Dubai skyscraper will feature a 2,000ft continuous elevator journey - with double-decker cars to transport more people

  01-10-2026 12:50 via dailymail.com
  
  If you think the lift to the top of The Shard is a long ride, spare a thought for future visitors to Dubai's Burj Azizi. 
  
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• UK privacy watchdog starts over with new board and Manchester HQ

  01-10-2026 12:42 via theregister.com
  
  Britain's data protection watchdog has acquired a new legal identity and governance structure, although the familiar ICO initials are staying put. On September 30, the Information Commission replaced the Information Commissioner as the statutory regulator. The organization itself will be known as the Information Commission's Office and will continue using the ICO name. The change is more than a bureaucratic rebrand. The former regulator was a "corporation sole," meaning its statutory powers and
  
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• Is AI secretly conscious? Scientist demands urgent tests - and warns switching it off could be unethical if it is

  01-10-2026 12:25 via dailymail.com
  
  What if the world's smartest chatbot really did wake up one day? While it may sound like science fiction, a consciousness scientist says we urgently need to start thinking about the possibility.
  
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