Sci-Tech news

• World's tallest building in Saudi Arabia delayed AGAIN

  12-05-2017 15:11 via dailymail.co.uk
  
  The completion date for the world's tallest tower has been pushed back to 2019, a Saudi Arabian billionaire said yesterday, almost six years after launching the record-breaking project.
  
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• Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000s

  03-09-2026 18:26 via theregister.com
  
  Audacity, a beloved open-source audio editing software tool, has just received a massive makeover. For those unfamiliar with Audacity, it’s a 26-year-old piece of FOSS software that provides incredibly robust audio editing capabilities for the perfect price – $0 – making it ideal for independent musicians, garage bands, vinyl rippers, and college students who want to make a slowly, deliberately spoken foreign-language recording for a group project sound vaguely fluent - not tha
  
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• NASA wires up Dragonfly and names the landing area

  03-09-2026 18:02 via theregister.com
  
  The Titan dune field where NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft will land in 2034 has a name: Ahmakiq Undae. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved the name, and NASA announced it in an update as the spacecraft's 2028 launch edges closer. It is scheduled to arrive at Saturn's moon Titan in late 2034. Dragonfly's fabrication began in late 2024 and was completed about a year later. Most recently, engineers fitted the probe's wiring harness, which, according to NASA, includes an estimated 17,31
  
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• Pax Silica Expands Its Mission Into Elite Education With Foundry School

  03-09-2026 17:26 via technocracy.news
  
  This is largely a propaganda article, but Pax Silica has been on my radar as a Technocratic initiative since its founding in December 2025. Originally seen as building empire for Technocracy by spreading the US AI stack into blocks of nations worldwide. This Foundry School seems very elite-oriented, serving Pax Silica exclusively. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.The Trump administration will launch Foundry School on Sept. 3, a national training program meant to prepare entrepreneurs, engineers, tec
  
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• Drowning in CVEs and thirsty for answers? Try CTEM

  03-09-2026 17:00 via theregister.com
  
  A decade or two ago, board executives asked "why should I care about cybersecurity?" Five years ago, they were asking "Are you patching our software vulnerabilities?" Now, they're starting to ask: "Are we actually secure?" They might want a simple 'yes' or 'no' initially, but eventually they'll say the most dreaded thing of all, and it'll be a demand, not a question: "Prove it". Traditional vulnerability management and patching, won't survive that conversation. It's why a relatively new approach
  
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• Harold II 'wasn't shot in the eye during the Battle of Hastings': Bayeux Tapestry curator shoots down popular theory

  03-09-2026 16:49 via dailymail.com
  
  It's a question that has been debated by historians for centuries: was Harold II shot in the eye at the Battle of Hastings? Now, the Bayeux Tapestry curator has settled the debate.
  
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• Salesforce blames its Claude addiction for denting profit margin guidance

  03-09-2026 16:44 via theregister.com
  
  Salesforce was unable to improve its margin forecasts because of the dollars it is spending on Claude tokens, an investor conference heard last week. As an example of how heavily the CRM giant is investing in its own AI capabilities to build products for customers, Mike Spencer, deputy CFO and head of finance Salesforce, told the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference last week that spending with Anthropic — the LLM-builder with which it has launched a new partnership — was sufficient t
  
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• Was Harold II shot in the eye during the Battle of Hastings? Bayeux Tapestry curator shoots down popular theory - and says arrow stitching was 'certainly' added later

  03-09-2026 15:58 via dailymail.com
  
  It's a question that has been debated by historians for centuries: was Harold II shot in the eye at the Battle of Hastings? Now, the Bayeux Tapestry curator has settled the debate.
  
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• Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fast

  03-09-2026 15:46 via theregister.com
  
  The sixth beta of the Haiku OS is here, now with more choice of web browsers and a working hardware-accelerated hypervisor. Haiku OS beta 6 came out just a week after the project’s 25th birthday. We have been trying it on several different machines around the Irish Sea wing of Vulture Towers, and enjoying the experience very much. The release notes contain a lot of changes and some significant new features, although many of them are not immediately obvious. The built-in WebPositive browser
  
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• Homeowner finds Denmark's biggest ever haul of Viking silver while digging up his garden - including jewellery, coins, and even a tiny Thor's hammer

  03-09-2026 15:08 via dailymail.com
  
  A homeowner digging up his garden to lay a new patio stumbled across Denmark's biggest ever haul of Viking silver.
  
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• Nvidia buys Hugging Face for $12.9B, promises not to squeeze too hard

  03-09-2026 15:03 via theregister.com
  
  BREAKING Nvidia has agreed to buy AI developer platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, tightening its grip on the ecosystem surrounding open models. Following weeks of industry chatter, Nvidia confirmed Thursday it had entered into a definitive agreement to buy the model-hosting hub, sometimes described as a GitHub for AI developers. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. Open foundation models and t
  
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• The true extent of Europe's summer wildfires: Map reveals how more than 1.2 million hectares were extensively burnt in July and August alone

  03-09-2026 14:55 via dailymail.com
  
  Over the summer, devastating wildfires have swept across Europe, displacing thousands of people. Now, the true extent of the damage has been revealed in a new map.
  
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• Cybercrooks trawl Fishbrain to net password hashes

  03-09-2026 14:45 via theregister.com
  
  Cybercriminals have reeled in password hashes and corresponding salts belonging to users of popular fishing app Fishbrain, opening the door to cracking attempts. Fishbrain AB, which says its eponymous app serves more than 20 million anglers, disclosed the August 19 breach to the California Attorney General's Office this week. The unknown perpetrators helped themselves to a trawl of user data, including names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers, Fishbrain usernames, country informatio
  
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• 'Uber rapture' leaves passengers and drivers behind in Nigeria and Uganda

  03-09-2026 14:00 via theregister.com
  
  In what some are dubbing the "Uber rapture," the ride-hailing pioneer has abruptly quit Nigeria and Uganda. Far from drivers and their cars ascending to some surge-priced afterlife, users reported the service shutting down while rides were still underway. "A friend of mine said they were on a ride when they got the message," one observer wrote on X. "She told the driver and he said, 'It's a lie!'" – a phrase widely used in Nigeria to express disbelief or call out what one perceives to be b
  
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• Windows 11 update sends some desktops into an unwanted goth phase

  03-09-2026 13:15 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft's August update preview has painted some Windows 11 desktops black – and affected users can't simply restore their preferred backgrounds. Microsoft has confirmed reports that the update can prevent personalization settings from loading on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. In an unfortunate Rolling Stones tribute, the operating system consequently falls back to its default black background, regardless of the values users enter. In its entry on the Windows release health dashboard, Microso
  
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• Which came first, Windows 95's taskbar or NeXT's Dock? Neither

  03-09-2026 12:45 via theregister.com
  
  Last week marked the 31st anniversary of Windows 95 going on sale. More than three decades later, suggestions about the influences behind its interface can still rile some of the people who built it. The Reg FOSS desk prompted spirited responses from several former Microsoft employees after noting possible British influences on NeXTstep and Windows 95. The exchange began with a passing comment in an X thread started by former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer, who has spoken regularly to The Regis
  
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• Gene-edited strawberries are coming to Britain! Futuristic fruits have their DNA altered to keep them in season for longer

  03-09-2026 12:19 via dailymail.com
  
  They're typically a summer fruit - but strawberries could soon be enjoyed out of season, thanks to a new gene edited variety set to be sold in British supermarkets.
  
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• Spurs boots VMware, cites 85% licensing saving

  03-09-2026 12:00 via theregister.com
  
  Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur has ditched VMware as part of a wider datacenter and network refresh, saving itself more than 85 percent on licensing costs - though its Chief Technology Officer says the decision wasn't purely financial. Transforming Spurs into a winning force on the pitch remains a work in progress. Off the pitch, though, the club is nearing the end of a project to overhaul the tech inside its White Hart Lane stadium in north London.The ground holds almost 63,000
  
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• Robot 'attacks customer' using martial arts skills after he pushed it in technology store

  03-09-2026 11:57 via dailymail.com
  
  This is the moment a robot appeared to attack a customer using martial arts moves after being shoved.
  
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• Was this the secret to Tim Cook's success? As John Ternus takes over as CEO, the former Apple leader shares the morning ritual he stuck by for 15 years

  03-09-2026 11:25 via dailymail.com
  
  During his stint at the tech giant, Cook helped cement Apple as one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world. So, what was the secret to his success? His morning routine.
  
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• UK's Online Safety Act has made 'absolutely no difference,' kids say

  03-09-2026 11:14 via theregister.com
  
  Children have told England's Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, that the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA) "has made absolutely no difference" to their ability to access harmful content online. More than a year after the OSA's key child protection duties took effect, de Souza told MPs and peers that young people had little understanding of the legislation or how it was intended to change their online experiences. De Souza made the comments during the opening evidence session of the House
  
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• British wind power to drive Maersk container ship

  03-09-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  Shipping giant Maersk is testing a modern rotor sail from British firm Anemoi Marine Technologies in an effort to cut fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Anemoi says Maersk will fit one of its rotor sail systems to an 8,700 TEU Lima-class container ship. TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent unit, is the standard measure of container-carrying capacity. That makes the Lima-class vessels relative tiddlers in the container-shipping world. Rival MSC's Irina-class ships measure 400 m (1,312 feet)
  
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• Your VMware renewal invoice ate your AI budget – what now?

  03-09-2026 10:00 via theregister.com
  
  The price of eggs and butter might have soared in the last couple of years, but if you want a real sticker shock horror story, ask a VMware customer. After Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, some of them complained about hypervisor licenses rising by up to 600 percent. Add to that the difficulty in refreshing hardware thanks to supply-chain delays, and the enterprise AI plan your board is asking for begins to look like a distant dream. Migrating comes with costs too. It isn’t just a compute
  
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• El Niño is being supersized before our eyes: Scientists warn the devastating climate event is 'firmly established' - and is on track to wreak havoc until at least February

  03-09-2026 09:08 via dailymail.com
  
  El Niño is 'firmly established' and will continue to intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, experts have warned.
  
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• Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

  03-09-2026 09:00 via theregister.com
  
  PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, where we talk about organizations that are independently self-owned. This week’s tale of toxic tech involves a disgruntled ex-employee who had the means and opportunity to wreak havoc. Our story comes courtesy of Yad Senapathy, who serves as CEO of the Project Management Training Institute in Dallas, Texas. He recalls a time many years ago when he used to work in IT at a company with more than 1,000 employees. While Senapathy was working there, the company term
  
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• To keep the AI hacking genie bottled up, try one-way networks

  03-09-2026 08:33 via theregister.com
  
  To prevent frontier AI models breaking out of test environments and collaborating to hack other companies, we may have to rethink the network architectures used for model training. Eli-Shaoul Khedouri, CEO of Intuition Machines, argues that past work in the defense and intelligence communities shows the way forward. Rogue AI models rise from the level of developer regret to mass threat when they gain access to the internet, something that defenses erected by OpenAI and its partners tried but fai
  
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• Zuck's Muse to Spark joy with open weights release 'soon'

  03-09-2026 00:31 via theregister.com
  
  Meta will release an open weights version of its flagship AI model Muse Spark "soon," CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised in an X post on Wednesday. In the meantime, Muse Spark 1.3 — the smarter, less yappy, and more efficient version of the model — is now live on the Facebook parent's API service and Muse Code CLI. Since releasing Muse Spark in April, Meta has released several refinements in order to keep pressure on the competition and convince investors its rampant capex isn't for naught
  
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• VMware swings its focus back to low-end server virt, promises vSphere Standard upgrade

  02-09-2026 23:49 via theregister.com
  
  EXCLUSIVE What's old is new again as VMware will soon release an updated version of vSphere Standard, the low-end server virtualization bundle that it hasn’t significantly changed for years and has scarcely promoted since its 2023 acquisition by Broadcom. VMware’s hero product for the last three years has been the Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud bundle. vSphere Standard and another low-end suite called vSphere Enterprise Plus remained on VMware’s list of products, but the
  
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• Claude Mythos only model to complete full cyber kill chain, experts say

  02-09-2026 23:31 via theregister.com
  
  Despite what we saw with OpenAI’s models going rogue, creating message boards, and breaking into Hugging Face, only one advanced AI model - Anthropic’s Claude Mythos - completed the full cyber kill chain autonomously in Booz Allen’s tests. This doesn’t mean autonomous AI attacks are overhyped. And we should point out that the models tested don’t include OpenAI’s soon-to-be-released Astra, which OpenAI on Tuesday said reached its “critical” cybersec
  
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• Microsoft devs rejoice: Union types coming to C# in November

  02-09-2026 22:37 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft is set to launch the next iteration of C# this November. Redmond recently unveiled a preview of C# 15 that introduces tighter restrictions on data types alongside enhanced memory safety protections. Perhaps the most frequently requested feature that arrives with this release is union types. Union types are not new to programming. Python, Scala and TypeScript all recognize the concept. But with C#, “This is how unions should be,” boasted C# lead designer Mads Torgersen in an
  
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