The Register

• Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims 2025-04-26
  One eight-person publisher says it'll be forced to pay $1.5M WORLD WAR FEE  The Trump administration's tariffs are famously raising the prices of high-ticket products with lots of chips, like iPhones and cars, but they're also hurting small businesses like game makers. In this case, we're not talking video games, but the old-fashioned kind you […]
  Thomas Claburn
• Build your own antisocial writing rig with DOS and a $2 USB key 2025-04-26
  Reg hack pines for simpler times, then tries to recapture them Sometimes, the size and complexity of modern OSes – even the FOSS ones – is enough to make us miss the days when an entire bootable OS could fit in three files, when configuring a PC for production meant editing two plain-text files, which […]
  Liam Proven
• UK bans game controller exports to Russia in bid to ground drone attacks 2025-04-26
  Moscow likely to respawn elsewhere The British government is banning the export of video game controllers to Russia, claiming these can be repurposed for piloting drones on the frontline in Ukraine.…
  Dan Robinson
• AI-powered 20 foot robots coming for construction workers' jobs 2025-04-26
  Er, are we sure we want to outsource the welding? Rise of the machines  Construction workers could soon find themselves laboring alongside 20-foot (6 meter) tall AI-powered autonomous robots capable of welding, carpentry, and 3D printing buildings. What could possibly go wrong?…
  Dan Robinson
• Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed 2025-04-25
  Infosec is a team sport … unless you're in the White House Opinion  Just when it seems they couldn't be that careless, US officials tasked with defending the nation go and do something else that puts American critical infrastructure, national security, and troops' lives in danger.…
  Jessica Lyons
• Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member 2025-04-25
  What next for US-bankrolled vulnerability tracker? It's edging closer to a more independent, global future Kent Landfield, a founding member of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program and member of the board, learned through social media that the system he helped create was just hours away from losing funding.…
  Jessica Lyons
• More Ivanti attacks may be on horizon, say experts who are seeing 9x surge in endpoint scans 2025-04-25
  GreyNoise says it is the kind of activity that typically precedes new vulnerability disclosures Ivanti VPN users should stay alert as IP scanning for the vendor's Connect Secure and Pulse Secure systems surged by 800 percent last week, according to threat intel biz GreyNoise.…
  Connor Jones
• Oh, cool. Microsoft melts bug that froze Server 2025 Remote Desktop sessions 2025-04-25
  Where have we heard this before? Feb security update needs its own fix More than one month after complaints starting flying, Microsoft has fixed a Windows bug that caused some Remote Desktop sessions to freeze.…
  Iain Thomson
• Hydrotreated vegetable oil is not an emission-free swap for diesel in datacenters 2025-04-25
  Biofuel lowers pollutants, but won't eliminate 'em, and could mean DCs compete for supplies Datacenter operators are being encouraged to adopt hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as a replacement for diesel in generators, however, analysts say the sustainable stand-in is not emission-free and has its own drawbacks.…
  Dan Robinson
• M&S stops online orders as 'cyber incident' issues worsen 2025-04-25
  One step forward and one step back as earlier hopes of progress dashed by latest update Marks & Spencer has paused online orders for customers via its website and app as the UK retailer continues to wrestle with an ongoing "cyber incident."…
  Connor Jones
• Emergency patch for potential SAP zero-day that could grant full system control 2025-04-25
  German software giant paywalls details, but experts piece together the clues SAP's latest out-of-band patch is for a perfect 10/10 bug in NetWeaver that experts suspect could have already been exploited as a zero-day.…
  Connor Jones
• Hubble Space Telescope is still producing science at 35 2025-04-25
  Remember when NASA was laser focused on that? It was 35 years ago when the Hubble Space Telescope deployed into orbit, sent by a space agency facing an existential crisis. Thirty-five years on, not much seems to have changed.…
  Richard Speed
• Google admits depreciation costs are soaring amid furious bit barn build 2025-04-25
  Still plans to invest $75B in CapEx this year as unable to meet capacity demand Google says the mega capital splurge on datacenters in recent years is putting more strain on its balance sheet due to rising depreciation costs, yet it still plans to splash $75 billion on bit barns in 2025.…
  Paul Kunert
• Virgin Atlantic is piloting an OpenAI agent in to help with the 'customer journey' 2025-04-25
  Hello, operator? Book me to Memphis, Tennessee Interview  For all the talk of the "agentic era" from AI vendors like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and just about everyone else in the space, corporate use of the technology is still tentative. Virgin Atlantic has been conducting flight tests of its website with an AI agent called […]
  Thomas Claburn
• Europe fires up beefier booster for Ariane 6 and Vega-C 2025-04-25
  Successful qualification run for P160C solid-fuel motor in South American spaceport A qualification version of the P160C solid-fuel motor was successfully tested at the European Spaceport in French Guiana on April 24, paving the way for heftier payloads on the Ariane 6 and Vega rockets.…
  Richard Speed
• £136M government grant saves troubled Post Office from suboptimal IT 2025-04-25
  Taxpayers foot bill to get to new platform as Fujitsu package balloons to £2.44 billion The UK's Post Office would have to cope with suboptimal IT, increased risks and costs, and reduced reporting accuracy if it didn't receive £136 million ($180 million) in government aid to keep its disastrous Horizon system running and replace it […]
  Lindsay Clark
• Claims assistance firm fined for cold-calling people who put themselves on opt-out list 2025-04-25
  Third-party data supplier also in hot water with Brit regulator over consent issues Britain's data privacy watchdog has slapped a fine of £90k ($120k) on a business that targeted people with intrusive marketing phone calls, despite them being registered with the official "Do Not Call" opt-out service.…
  Dan Robinson
• Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee 2025-04-25
  Volts make jolts On Call  By the time Friday morning rolls around, starting the day with a stimulating beverage feels like a fine idea. And so does delivering a freshly brewed installment of On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which you share tales of tech support triumph and torture.…
  Simon Sharwood
• Darcula adds AI to its DIY phishing kits to help would-be vampires bleed victims dry 2025-04-25
  Because coding phishing sites from scratch is a real pain in the neck Darcula, a cybercrime outfit that offers a phishing-as-a-service kit to other criminals, this week added AI capabilities to its kit that help would-be vampires spin up phishing sites in multiple languages more efficiently.…
  Jessica Lyons
• New Intel boss is all about ‘de-laborating’ the x86 giant – aka job cuts 2025-04-24
  Thousands face ax, more given RTO orders in quest to suck less Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is swinging the ax again, with another round of layoffs incoming as Chipzilla tries to reboot its core.…
  Thomas Claburn