American science put on starvation diet
National Science Foundation FY 2026 budget cut by more than 60%
Science30 May 2025 | 20
Offbeat
Feds arrest DoD techie, claim he dumped top secret files in park for foreign spies to find
28-year-old alleged to have made multiple drops to folks who turned out to be undercover FBI agents
Security30 May 2025 | 7
Data watchdog put cops on naughty step for lost CCTV footage
Greater Manchester Police reprimanded over hours of video that went AWOL
Storage30 May 2025 | 14
Astroboffins analyzed old data and found a candidate dwarf planet in the Oort cloud
Thank whoever decided to make the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey public for this discovery
Science30 May 2025 | 21
US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media
Against backdrop of EU rules on spread of misinfo plus UK probing role of online hate in far right riots
Personal Tech29 May 2025 | 106
Apple has only 30 days to comply with EU DMA rules
Users leaving App Store to make a third party payment must be free of charge, says Euro Commish
Applications29 May 2025 | 10
China to visit Earth’s ‘quasi-moon’ and bring a chunk of it back home
Tianwen 2 probe launched Thursday and will also get up close with a comet
Science29 May 2025 | 12
India none-too-subtly reminds Big Tech that local laws prohibit dark patterns
‘Consumers will not tolerate deceit’ Minister tells Amazon, Apple, Samsung and Uber
Legal29 May 2025 | 9
MIT boffins claim liquid sodium battery could one day power aircraft while sucking up CO2
Prototype packs triple the energy density of lithium-ion, they claim
Science28 May 2025 | 47
German court parks four Volkswagen execs in jail over Dieselgate scandal
More cases about 2015 software swindle stuck in legal traffic jam
Legal28 May 2025 | 49
SpaceX resets 'Days Since Last Starship Explosion' counter to zero, again
Musk’s rocket co fails to deploy any dummy satellites either
Science28 May 2025 | 78
Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz
Nick Clegg, former politico and Zuckcorp policy Prez, seems confused, can Reg readers help him?
AI + ML27 May 2025 | 147
Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers or face its wrath
No, not Amazon. China’s SHEIN is in the spotlight for fake discounts, grubby greenery, and evading inquiries
Public Sector27 May 2025 | 61
Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away
Who, Me? Life in a corporate aquarium didn’t go swimmingly
Offbeat26 May 2025 | 108
Remembering John Young, co-founder of web archive Cryptome
Obituary The original leak site that never sold out, never surrendered
Offbeat24 May 2025 | 11
Forgotten Turing treasure trove rescued from attic goes under the hammer
Computing pioneer's personal papers expected to fetch tens of thousands
Offbeat24 May 2025 | 17
FAA gives SpaceX the nod for Starship Flight 9 but doubles the danger zone
Updated Aircraft Hazard Area now stretches 1,600 nautical miles
Science23 May 2025 | 25
BOFH: The Boss meets the unbearable weight of innovation
Episode 10 The future of snacks is here, and it's a bit unsteady
BOFH23 May 2025 | 40
Grandpa-conning crook jailed over sugar-coated drug scam
Callous fraudster tricked elderly gents into smuggling meth hidden in chocolate truffles
Offbeat23 May 2025 | 13
Space Force tech mission threatened by staff and funding black hole
Budget slashing has 'outsized impact' on us, says commander who fears branch not ready for orbital war
Public Sector22 May 2025 | 17
Popular
Why is China deep in US networks? 'They're preparing for war,' HR McMaster tells lawmakers
House Homeland Security Committee takes a field trip to Silicon Valley
8,000+ Asus routers popped in 'advanced' mystery botnet plot
No formal attribution made but two separate probes hint at the same suspect
Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor
On Call After three service calls, user reflected on their utter stupidity
Anthropic CEO frets about 20% unemployment from AI, but economists are doubtful
It's hard to predict the future, but trying might get Amodei a seat at the regulatory table
Microsoft's May Patch Tuesday update fails on some Windows 11 VMs
'The operating system couldn't be loaded' is never a great message
Thunderbird is go: 139 follows closely on Firefox's heels
One of the new smaller monthly releases – and how to tweak it
The UK wants you to sign up for £1B cyber defense force
War in Ukraine causes major rethink in policy and spending
Meta – yep, Facebook Meta – is now a defense contractor
Giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together so we can shoot them
Security outfit SentinelOne's services back online after lengthy outage
Probably not a cyber-incident, but definitely not a good look
US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media
Against backdrop of EU rules on spread of misinfo plus UK probing role of online hate in far right riots
STORIES
Irish privacy watchdog OKs Meta to train AI on EU folks' posts
Case in Germany could derail Zuck's plans, noyb tells El Reg fight isn't over
AI + ML22 May 2025 | 25
VMware price hikes? Between 800 and 1,500%, claim Euro customers
Report slates end of perpetual licenses, death of monthly pay-as-you-go model, and 'punitive' changes by Broadcom
PaaS + IaaS22 May 2025 | 54
China finds a previously unknown microbe on its space station
Don’t panic! It's related to an earthly bug, eats gelatin, not astronauts, and may have adapted to life in space
Science22 May 2025 | 17
Microsoft-backed AI out-forecasts hurricane experts without crunching the physics
LLM trained on decades of weather data claimed to be faster, and cheaper
European Supercomputing21 May 2025 | 24
Estimating AI energy usage is fiendishly hard – but this report took a shot
And it gets even harder when you try to estimate CO2 emissions
AI + ML21 May 2025 | 11
Judge allows Delta's lawsuit against CrowdStrike to proceed with millions in damages on the line
CS remains hopeful damages will be limited to seven figures
Security21 May 2025 | 5
NASA was eyeing ISS crew cutbacks before Trump's budget landed
Will the US President take credit for that one as well?
Science21 May 2025 | 3
UK 'extremely dependent' on US for space security
After 60 years+ cooperation on space and military ops, worrying 'rhetoric' from Team Trump has Brits examining options
Security21 May 2025 | 108
Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would create a regulation-free AI hellscape, AGs warn
Republican defense of states' rights doesn't apply to curtailing LLMs, apparently
AI + ML20 May 2025 | 28
Actors' union complains about Epic Games cloning Darth Vader
I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further
AI + ML20 May 2025 | 29
Trump signs TAKE IT DOWN law meant to stop revenge porn
Fine-print is vague and broad, could easily be abused to blunt protected speech
Personal Tech20 May 2025 | 83
Show us your face: New Orleans PD reportedly got secret facial recognition alerts
Police took Big Easy attitude to the rules, says WaPo
Legal19 May 2025 | 8
Aussie rocket foiled by premature fairing pop
Updated A fair dinkum disaster
Science19 May 2025 | 27
DARPA zaps popcorn with laser power beamed 5.3 miles through air
800-watt demo breaks distance record for optical energy transmission
Science19 May 2025 | 37
When LLMs get personal info they are more persuasive debaters than humans
Large-scale disinfo campaigns could use this in machines that adapt 'to individual targets.' Are we having fun yet?
AI + ML19 May 2025 | 17
Millions at risk after attackers steal UK legal aid data dating back 15 years
Cybercriminals lifted info including addresses, ID numbers, and financial records from agency systems
Cyber-crime19 May 2025 | 49
No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon
Feature As long as you're quiet about it
Science17 May 2025 | 94
America’s consumer watchdog drops leash on proposed data broker crackdown
Crooks must be licking their lips at the possibilities
Personal Tech16 May 2025 | 10
Defamation case against DEF CON terminated with prejudice
'We hope it makes attendees feel safe reporting violations'
Security16 May 2025 | 4
Microsoft proposes sweeping global concessions to Teams for up to a decade
Beast of Redmond runs scared from EC antitrust cops half decade after rivals complained
SaaS16 May 2025 | 7
NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix
Failure could've triggered a small explosion
Science15 May 2025 | 80
Anthropic’s law firm throws Claude under the bus over citation errors in court filing
AI footnote fail triggers legal palmface in music copyright spat
Legal15 May 2025 | 30
Plan to keep advanced chips from China with tracking tech gains support in Congress
Every shipment you make, every FLOP you generate, Uncle Sam will be watching you
AI Infrastructure Month15 May 2025 | 25
Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25%
Surely Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric has nothing to do with it
On-Prem15 May 2025 | 43
Next week's SpaceX Starship test still needs FAA authorization
Aiming for the stars, but sometimes hitting the Caribbean
Science15 May 2025 | 62
Royal Navy freshens up ships' electromagnetic warfare defenses
MEWSIC to Brit crews' ears will see off anti-ship missiles, among other things
Offbeat15 May 2025 | 44
Intuitive Machines blames dim lighting and dodgy data for second lunar faceplant
Touchdown with no topple? Company aims for third time lucky
Science14 May 2025 | 22
Meta's still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb
'Legitimate interest' won't wash, says privacy outfit, as Zuck's org claims activists want to 'delay AI innovation'
AI + ML14 May 2025 | 71
Saudi CubeSat gets golden ticket on doomed SLS rocket
Trump greenlights slot for Riyadh as NASA's pricey booster teeters on the brink
Science14 May 2025 | 14
NSF director memo to staff: Don't worry about those job cuts, at least for now
Court orders halt to layoffs – as folks steering American innovation wonder how long injunction will last
Science14 May 2025 | 8
Qatar’s $400M jet for Trump is a gold-plated security nightmare
Air Force Dumb
Bootnotes13 May 2025 | 106
Boffins warn that AI paper mills are swamping science with garbage studies
Research flags rise in one-dimensional health research fueled by large language models
AI + ML13 May 2025 | 78
After more than half a century, the voyage of Kosmos 482 is over
The Soviet Union aimed for Venus, but hit the Indian Ocean instead
Science13 May 2025 | 25
Mars may have vast underground oceans and enough H2O to make it a water world
Chinese and Australian boffins ask what else could be slowing down seismic waves as they pass through the Red Planet?
Science13 May 2025 | 28
Fusion eggheads claim modeling fix for particle escape - at least in stellarators
One problem down, x - 1 problems go
Science12 May 2025 | 14
CERN boffins turn lead into gold for about a microsecond at unimaginable cost
So alchemists had the right idea – they just lacked a 27 km particle accelerator
Science12 May 2025 | 39
Paul McCartney, Elton John, other creatives demand AI comes clean on scraping
Musicians, artists, writers, actors urge government to protect copyright
AI + ML12 May 2025 | 42
US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired
Some see an action to benefit Elon. The White House sees an agency obsessed with DEI
AI + ML12 May 2025 | 113
TikTok's Chinese app - Douyin - in trouble after spat over the price of jade
Asia In Brief PLUS: Huawei's Windows-free PC appears; Robo-car rentals come to China; Europe, India, collab in space; and more
Legal12 May 2025 | 4
UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans
France's share of MOD cash is growing while the US's shrinks
Offbeat10 May 2025 | 78
Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways
MIT research team proves pop science eggsplanation wrong
Offbeat10 May 2025 | 65
Nip chip smugglers by building trackers into GPUs, US Senator suggests
AI phone home
On-Prem09 May 2025 | 74
US govt's science foundation purges 37 divisions, equity unit among casualties
DEI another day: Trump priorities bite as $1B in grants vanish, layoffs loom
Science09 May 2025 | 81
VIPER rover banished to storage as moonshot plan sputters
NASA cancels solicitation to get a partner to launch, land, and operate the bot for free
Science09 May 2025 | 12
Microsoft wants us to believe AI will crack practical fusion power, driving future AI
This BS ends at some point, right?
AI Infrastructure Month09 May 2025 | 48
As US scientists flee Trump, MP urges Britain to do more to nab them
One concrete suggestion: Looser visa requirements
Science09 May 2025 | 140
BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts
Episode 9 Look, it's using big words like 'gamification'!
BOFH09 May 2025 | 71
NASA JPL boss bails for 'personal reasons' as budget cuts bite
Updated Laurie Leshin to leave in June
Science08 May 2025 | 16
Amazon touts Vulcan – its first robot with a sense of 'touch'
Claims human warehouse workers will still live long and prosper
Offbeat08 May 2025 | 13
ESA feeling weightless and unwanted amid proposed NASA cuts
Euro space agency insists it's reliable and desirable in face of 'abusive spouse'
Science08 May 2025 | 15
'I see you're running a local LLM. Would you like some help with that?'
Dev creates official Clippy 'love letter' to query AI models on your box
Bootnotes08 May 2025 | 11
Delta Air Lines class action cleared for takeoff over CrowdStrike chaos
Judge allows aspects of passenger lawsuit to proceed
Security07 May 2025 | 2
NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
It's not rocket science, it's budgeting
Databases07 May 2025 | 6
Top sci-fi convention gets an earful from authors after using AI to screen panelists
Leave it to the Borg? Scribe David D. Levine slams 'use of planet-destroying plagiarism machines'
Bootnotes07 May 2025 | 128
Trump's wind farm funding freeze is so much hot air, say states as they blow sueball to Washington
We'd be shocked, just shocked, if Big Tech's renewable energy ambitions aren't known in the White House
On-Prem07 May 2025 | 62
Super spyware maker NSO must pay Meta $168M in WhatsApp court battle
Don't f&#k with Zuck
CSO06 May 2025 | 17
Microsoft burnishes green cred by paying Swedes to burn biomass and bury CO2
Updated Schemes like this are just a license to pollute for tech giants, or so critics say
Science06 May 2025 | 12
EU tells US scientists to dump Trump for a lab in Europe
Brussels rolls out €500M plan to lure boffins with grants and actual respect for research
Science06 May 2025 | 97
Culture comes first in cybersecurity. That puts cybersecurity on the front line in the culture wars
Opinion 'Trust us, we're from Trumpland' may not help Microsoft as much as it hopes
Columnists06 May 2025 | 46
Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine
Who, Me? Fake it till you make it doesn't cut it for mission-critical workloads
Columnists05 May 2025 | 96
Altman's eyeball-scanning biometric blockchain orbs officially come to America
El Reg checks out shop in SF
Bootnotes04 May 2025 | 52
Soviet probe from 1972 set to return to Earth ... in May 2025
Not, it's not the plot of a sci-fi disaster movie
Science03 May 2025 | 108
Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way
Proposed cuts would mean: No Lunar Gateway, Artemis hardware to retire, ISS toast in 2030
Science02 May 2025 | 121
The Telegraph jumps the gun on World War III
Trigger-happy Taiwan headline sparks instant apocalypse vibes
Bootnotes02 May 2025 | 32
Trio arrested in £3M UK bribery probe over Microsoft datacenter build in Netherlands
Blu-3 accused of paying off former Mace Group associates
Legal02 May 2025 | 7
NASA probes propulsion problem in Psyche's thrusters
Mission to a metal asteroid lacks xenon pressure
Science01 May 2025 | 5
Linux in Excel? Sure, why not ruin both
The spreadsheet from Hell
Bootnotes01 May 2025 | 24
'I guess NASA doesn't need or care about my work anymore'
Former Space Shuttle boss's blog booted from Trump-era agency website
Science30 Apr 2025 | 39
Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe's tech independence
Brad Smith commits org to facing off with US govt in court to protect them
PaaS + IaaS30 Apr 2025 | 105
Does UK's Online Safety Act cover misinformation? Well, that depends
Minister, platform providers disagree on whether law would have helped avoid last summer's riots
Public Sector30 Apr 2025 | 75
TAKE IT DOWN Act? Yes, take the act down before it's too late for online speech
Good intentions, terrible wording – and Trump can't wait to use it because 'nobody gets treated worse than I do'
Personal Tech29 Apr 2025 | 49
Infosec pros tell Trump to quit bullying Chris Krebs – it's undermining security
Top voices warn that political retaliation puts democracy and national defense at risk
Security29 Apr 2025 | 70
Swiss boffins admit to secretly posting AI-penned posts to Reddit in the name of science
They’re sorry/not sorry for testing if bots can change minds by pretending to be a trauma counselor or a victim of sexual abuse
AI + ML29 Apr 2025 | 22
Amazon’s first 27 Kuiper broadband sats make it into orbit on an Atlas V
One launch down, 80-plus to go, for a pittance compared to planned AWS spending
Networks29 Apr 2025 | 12
Satellite slinger AST reckons newer birds won't outshine stars in night sky
As astronomers gripe about sats screwing observations
Science28 Apr 2025 | 8
Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline
Updated Cyberattack? Bad software update? International oopsie? The cause is unclear, but Iberia is dark
Offbeat28 Apr 2025 | 197
Windows profanity filter finally gets a ******* off switch
No more asterisks. Voice typing now reflects the true spirit of your rage
OSes28 Apr 2025 | 37
DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI
Now that's a sum of all fears
AI + ML27 Apr 2025 | 43
Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims
WORLD WAR FEE One eight-person publisher says it'll be forced to pay $1.5M
Bootnotes26 Apr 2025 | 129
AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs
Rise of the machines Er, are we sure we want to outsource the welding?
Offbeat26 Apr 2025 | 88
Biting the hand that feeds IT
