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Silicon Roundabout

Kids turned the comment section of an NPR podcast into a group chat

Middle schoolers, likely blocked from other apps and social networks, apparently turned the Spotify comment section under an episode of NPR's Wild Card into an impromptu group chat. In a new episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass digs in...

OpenAI pauses training of its ‘most capable models’

As reports of OpenAI's models breaking containment, hacking sites, and generally getting out of control pile up, the company has made the decision to pause training of its most powerful models. The decision was made after a model being tested w...

How Samsung turned months of inactivity into a very attention-seeking smartphone

Our resident Microsoft-watcher Richard Speed last week wrote about his seven-hour odyssey bringing a Windows 11 box up to snuff with the latest patches. I’ll see you that struggle, Richard, and raise you my experience updating a 2022-vintage Samsung...

Space Jam: UK debuts space squadron to protect satellites

Britain’s Royal Air Force has gained some space cadets, in the form of No. III Space Effects Squadron, tasked with protecting critical satellites that the UK relies on for communications and navigation. Air Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth announced t...

Can Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince save the web from AI?

Today, I’m talking with Matthew Prince, who is CEO of Cloudflare. This episode is part of a two-part series on the future of business.Matthew last joined us on the show about two and a half years ago, at what we thought then was a wild pivot po...

Control Resonant is a great game — it’s even better when you read everything

In Control Resonant, the entire world is at stake. But that didn't stop the diligent employees of the Federal Bureau of Control from filing reams of paperwork, and it didn't stop me from reading everything I could find, either. Reading is often...

Pokémon card resellers have turned collecting into an online blood sport

Earlier this month, Pokémon cardcontent creator Natalie Roush posted a video to her YouTube and Instagram pages that enraged the larger collection community. In the now-deleted video, Roush shows off two premium boxes of cards that had n...

Can ‘eSUV’ e-bikes really go from trail to town?

Have you ever wanted an electric bike that easily transitions from the drudgery of urban asphalt to adventures in gravel and dirt? That's what a subclass of so-called "electric SUV" (eSUV) e-bikes claims to do, with their wide, all-terrain tire...

Valen creator drives 'Golden Spike' to connect new languages with Rust

Programming language generics can now ride in style from one language’s compiler to another and back again, thanks to experimental work from Mojo core contributor Evan Ovadia. This former Google engineer has endeavored to turn Rust into a library th...

Microsoft cells out, crams multiple values into Excel boxes

Microsoft has ended 40 years of single-occupancy for Excel cells and is now allowing multiple values to inhabit the same home. "One of the oldest rules of spreadsheets: one cell, one value," said Jake Armstrong, senior product manager for Excel, in...

Uncle Sam coughs up $1.9B for grid upgrades as datacenters hit a power wall

Bit barn builders can rejoice, because this week the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced $5.25 billion — including $1.9 billion of federal funds and $3.35 billion in cost-share funding — to support dozens of grid improvements across the nation e...

Fake Google Security Team ad says 'no script reading' in voice phishing - then prints the script

Yes, criminals have job listings too. A Telegram user recruiting callers to work in an apparent Google Security Team voice-phishing scam told applicants that they weren’t allowed to read from scripts – in the same ad that also included the exact scr...

New software dependency validation process increases speeds by 54x

As if the pace of software creation hadn't accelerated enough thanks to generative AI coding agents, computer scientists in Japan have devised a way to turbocharge the process of build dependency verification. Speeds can increase by as much as 54x....

ShinyHunters tells The Reg: We hacked the FBI to 'protect our business'

ShinyHunters, the data theft and extortion crew that has stolen sensitive information belonging to millions of cancer patients, university and K-12 students, and Carnival cruisers, wanted to preserve their reputation and keep their “business” afloat...

Google-backed energy outfit brings 33 MW of 4 GW geothermal potential online in Utah

Google's bet on geothermal energy is starting to pay off. Fervo Energy, an enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) provider backed by the Chocolate Factory, achieved first power at its Cape Station power plant in Beaver County, Utah this week. The first o...

Crooks use fake desktop apps to fool HR staff into giving them remote access

You work in your company's human resources department and use HR software to check employee information, benefits, and payroll. So, when you see a downloadable Windows version promising a faster alternative to the usual web interface, you grab it. U...

Bitget blames North Korea for $387.5M crypto wallet raid

The CEO of crypto exchange Bitget has confirmed that a cyberattack with all the hallmarks of a North Korean operation resulted in approximately $387.5 million worth of digital assets being stolen from the exchange’s wallets. Bitget initially estimat...

Office 2016 and 2019 holdouts blame update for license deactivation bug

Users report that a recent optional update for out-of-date Microsoft 365 applications might be connected to suddenly deactivated Microsoft Office 2016 and 2019 installations. The activation bug cropped up this week and appears to mostly impact Home...

Which copy of that file is the real one? Dinner, off the record, in Midtown

EVENT: The Register is hosting a private dinner in New York on Tuesday 27 October for senior technology, infrastructure and data leaders, with LucidLink. Joe Fay takes the chair, it runs under the Chatham House Rule, and nothing said leaves the tabl...

Raspberry Pi surfs memory crunch to record first half

Raspberry Pi has posted a record first half after a well-timed memory stockpile helped it ride out soaring prices and shortages. The Cambridge-based company reported revenue of $256.9 million for the six months ended June 30, up 90 percent from $135...