Offbeat News • The Register

BOFH: Arrr, I smell piracy ... and it's comin' from a machine with executive privileges

Episode 8 Hang on, can't we just turn off the internet?

BOFH24 Apr 2026 | 54

Betting shop bug ends in kidnap plot as staff turn ransom artists

Computer glitch spawns duplicate jackpots, disgruntled punters, and one very bad career choice

Software24 Apr 2026 | 8

Solid-state batteries hold more juice, but keep cracking up. Now researchers know why

Science23 Apr 2026 | 6

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope trumps Trump cuts, is launch-ready ahead of schedule

Revolutionary telescope aiming for space after multiple near death experiences

Science23 Apr 2026 | 21

Scotland Yard can keep using live facial recognition on people in London, say judges

Judges say cops face-slurping not a problem under current human rights laws

Security22 Apr 2026 | 69

UK tribunal sends £2B claim accusing Microsoft of overcharging for licensing to trial

Legal action claims tech giant charges more for Windows Server when it's not on Azure

PaaS + IaaS22 Apr 2026 | 4

Yet another ex-ransomware negotiator admits turning rogue after payoff from crimelords

Plus: Court papers reveal nonprofit paid a ransom worth nearly $26.8 million

Cyber-crime21 Apr 2026 | 9

FAA grounds Blue Origin's New Glenn as it probes missed satellite delivery 'mishap'

One of two second stage engines misbehaved, administration must sign off report before flights resume

Science21 Apr 2026 | 8

NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won’t be ready for Moon landing

Dud contracts, proprietary designs, and zero-experience supplier make for quite the mess

Science21 Apr 2026 | 52

You too can build a nuclear battery from junk you have lying around the house

It won't provide much juice, but its creator calls it a 'nanowatt nuclear power plant'

Science20 Apr 2026 | 55

Schmoozebots: Study finds flattery will get AI everywhere

Excessive friendliness may cause users to forget they're talking to a very confident autocomplete

AI + ML20 Apr 2026 | 7

Blue Origin nails the landing, but puts the payload satellite in the wrong orbit

Wouldn't be the first time a Jeff Bezos company left a package in the wrong place

Science20 Apr 2026 | 41

'Invisible mouse' made a mess of PC rebuild

Who, Me? You can't fix what you can't see – especially when your workspace is a maelstrom

Bootnotes20 Apr 2026 | 72

NASA working on ‘Big Bang’ upgrade to keep the Voyagers alive for longer

Tests scheduled for May can’t come soon enough after VGER 1 power glitch led to instrument shutdown

Science20 Apr 2026 | 34

NASA gets the ball rolling on its part in Europe's jinxed Mars rover mission

Rosalind Franklin moving again, though another budget cut looms

Science17 Apr 2026 | 14

Would you like fries with that terminal?

Bork!Bork!Bork! Jack might be on Track, but the order screen certainly isn't

Offbeat17 Apr 2026 | 20

Offbeat

BOFH: Arrr, I smell piracy ... and it's comin' from a machine with executive privileges

Betting shop bug ends in kidnap plot as staff turn ransom artists

Solid-state batteries hold more juice, but keep cracking up. Now researchers know why

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope trumps Trump cuts, is launch-ready ahead of schedule

AI bats away ping-pong challenge as rise of the machines continues

Google Meet or Google Mute? Even CEOs get borked sometimes

Datacenter boom keeps dirty coal plants alive in the US

NASA reckons the Artemis II heat shield performed like a champ

Scotland Yard can keep using live facial recognition on people in London, say judges

UK tribunal sends £2B claim accusing Microsoft of overcharging for licensing to trial

Yet another ex-ransomware negotiator admits turning rogue after payoff from crimelords

FAA grounds Blue Origin's New Glenn as it probes missed satellite delivery 'mishap'

NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won’t be ready for Moon landing

You too can build a nuclear battery from junk you have lying around the house

Schmoozebots: Study finds flattery will get AI everywhere

Blue Origin nails the landing, but puts the payload satellite in the wrong orbit

'Invisible mouse' made a mess of PC rebuild

NASA working on ‘Big Bang’ upgrade to keep the Voyagers alive for longer

NASA gets the ball rolling on its part in Europe's jinxed Mars rover mission

Would you like fries with that terminal?

Popular

Claude Opus 4.7 has turned into an overzealous query cop, devs complain

Using the password 'admin123' wasn't as bad as sharing it on Slack

Microsoft gives your Word documents an AI co-author you didn’t ask for

Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint, complains Proton CEO

If malware via monitor cables is a matter of national security, this might be the gadget for you

Anthropic admits it dumbed down Claude when trying to make it smarter

Solid-state batteries hold more juice, but keep cracking up. Now researchers know why

Microsoft beefs up Remote Desktop security with ... hard-to-read messages

Dev targeted by sophisticated job scam: 'I let my guard down, and ran the freaking code'

Medical data of 500k Biobank volunteers listed for sale on Alibaba, UK minister reveals

Americans who masterminded Nork IT worker fraud sentenced to 200 months behind bars

Swarm welcome: Britain lines up 120,000 drones for Ukraine

Obsolete Google nag drowns out vital bar information at Swedish concert hall

Bullet train upgrade brings 5G windows and noise-cancelling cabins to Japan

Indian government investigating TCS after police sting finds sexual harassment

Windows takes a crash dump after one McDonald's order too many

French cops free mother and son after 20-hour crypto kidnap ordeal

Fission impossible: Uncle Sam wants nuclear reactors in space by 2031

Britain's atomic brain trust gives itself till 2030 to unpick fusion challenges

Waymo's self-driving cars face their toughest test yet: London

Orbital datacenter startup CEO admits launch economics don't fly, presses ahead regardless

Boeing deliveries soar past Airbus for the first time in years, but this is no time to unbuckle your seat belt

California ghost-gun bill wants 3D printers to play cop, EFF says

Physicist reckons two-button calculator can do all elementary math

NASA insiders oddly relaxed about latest budget threats

IBM becomes first company to pay up under Trump administration's diversity blitz

Man suspected of Molotov attack on Sam Altman's home charged with attempted murder

Japanese rocket part came unglued, leading to mission failure

What happened when AI ran into the cold hard reality of the legal profession

Here's how to watch the Artemis II splashdown

BOFH: If the meatbags can't agree on aircon, AI will decide for them

Tech support chap's boss got him out of jail so he could finish a job

DARPA looking for battery that could power a laptop for months

Supermicro launches probe after staff charged with China export violations

Showing the Windows 10 desktop was the yeast they could do

Investors are going nuclear to keep UK's AI datacenters fed

Virtual SG-41 project brings Nazi cipher machine to life in the browser

Japan relaxes privacy laws to make itself the ‘easiest country to develop AI’

Artemis II snaps eclipse, Earthset shots on first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo

White House seeks deep NASA cuts as Artemis II breaks spaceflight record

The developer who came in from the cold and melted a mainframe

If an AI agent screws up while running your business, there's nobody to sue

When a billboard survives the wind, but not the boot

Contractor quaffed his way through Y2K compliance while the client scowled

Artemis II astronaut: 'I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working'

Artemis II blasts off on first crewed lunar mission since Apollo

Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year

Virgin Galactic reopens ticket sales with out-of-this-world price hikes

Starlink sprays debris into orbit following another satellite 'anomaly'

Mars coughs up another maybe-life clue in the form of nickel compounds

Surprise! Big Tech has been a bit rubbish at enforcing Australia’s kids social media ban

Artemis II countdown begins as NASA prepares for crewed Moon flyby

Google is to journalism what Vikings were to monks. Now their man will run the BBC

DXC staff to strike in Australia after some go without pay rise for five years

Bees and hummingbirds aren't just buzzing – they're sipping trace booze

To BSOD or not to BSOD? Only Microsoft knows the answer

Commercial space pleads with NASA to stop moving the goalposts in orbit

BOFH: Are you ready to raise our expense account limits now?