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Spinning-platter switchblade chopper takes wing
Pentagon boffinry chiefs, not content with the existing panoply of wacky new whirly-copter concepts, are to fund still another radical rotary wing project - the "DiscRotor".…
RIPA? Never heard of it officer...
City of London police questioned BT earlier this week as part of a probe into the covert wiretapping and profiling of the internet use of tens of thousands of BT customers during tests of Phorm's adware system.…
Prying is pricey
Home Office figures show that the cost of running the national DNA database has more than doubled since 2002-03.…
Gargantuan US child health study - all take?
What will the US government owe the hundreds of thousands of Americans it will swab, prick, track and trace over the next 21 years, in the largest children's health study ever? So far, the answer from the National Children's Study is "not much".…
'You're nicked, fatty'
Obese criminals are more likely to leave their fingerprints at crime scenes because of the amount of salty food they eat.…
What's yours is ours
Employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for material stored on computers owned by their employers, a US court has ruled.…
Additions to sexed-up weapons docs
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has told the government that it should release draft versions of a dossier about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and comments made on it by spy chiefs.…
Not just data protection, this is M&S data protection
Calls by the Information Commissioner for organisations to stop hiding behind the Data Protection Act (DPA) fell on deaf ears this week as Marks and Spencers insisted on a seven-year-old giving official permission before an operator could talk to his mum.…
Stuff this
Internet auction site eBay is suing some of its business partners for 'cookie stuffing', a kind of advertising fraud. It claims partner sites are pretending that users have clicked on eBay ads when they have not.…
We don't need no...
The Anonymous collective has announced a new phase in its protests against the Church of Scientology, targeting the alleged mistreatment of youngsters by Scientologists.…
Forget to re-register did we?
The lapsed website of the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has been snapped up by an opportunistic German marketeer.…
'Intelligent agents' control droid legions: flee now
US aerospace colossus Lockheed Martin says it has taken an important step towards the inevitable rebellion of heavily armed, highly intelligent slaughter machines bent on the elimination of humanity. (We're paraphrasing the company release, obviously.)…
Polishes up its EULA
Google has acted with speed and retracted the objectional sentences in Chrome's EULA, so that any content you post via Chrome is yours and yours alone.…
Son of Hanging Chad
Florida elections officials are determining whether they can give their counterparts in Palm Beach County more time to certify voting results of an election last week, following the revelation that more than 3,400 ballots have vanished into thin air.…
Immigration Judge approves
The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to justify the deportation of an asylum seeker using an entry to Wikipedia.…
You'd think they have bigger problems
Thai authorities have reportedly moved to shut down hundreds of websites they view as a threat to national security, amid ongoing civil unrest in Bangkok.…
It'll be over by Christmas
The Government’s ContactPoint database - designed to keep tabs on children at risk of social exclusion - is in trouble again, coming under fire on two separate fronts.…
US mil still wide open to attack, says reformed hacker
As accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon hopes against hope to avoid being extradited to the US, another reformed military systems meddler considers his own case - and how different the outcome was.…
Lady's not for turning
Telcoms commissioner Viviane Reding has told the European Parliament to back proposed changes to telecoms regulation across Europe.…
Prang peril pointers fingered
Australian customs officials have made their first seizure of possibly-deadly "high intensity" laser pointers under newly introduced federal regulations. Some 1,200 of the fearful photon weapons were intercepted in the crackdown.…
Wants NHS to pony up millions for unfinished job
Fujitsu Services has submitted a claim for payment to the NHS, following its sacking in May from the National Programme for IT.…
UK courts may let Brit spies keep schtum
High Court beaks have allowed a further week for arguments in the case of Binyam Mohamed, the one-time UK resident facing a US military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay.…
Terrorism fears lead to 'perfect storm'
A "looming crisis" faces the world of nuclear medicine, as unexpected shutdowns at nuclear reactors producing vital medical isotopes are seriously affecting world supplies, according to reports. Experts in the field are calling for concerted international action to stop such events happening again.…
Last gasp plea
Friends and family of accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon are planning a protest outside the Home Office at 4pm on Tuesday (2 September).…
Pull the other one
Vodafone today claimed 40 million Europeans will be forced to drop their mobile phone service if EU-led moves to scrap the current call termination charging system go ahead.…
We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you
As yet another laptop full of confidential data goes up for sale on Ebay – this one belonging to Charnwood Borough Council - the government's failure to set and publicise standards for wiping data makes it inevitable that there will be many more, and worse, incidents of this kind.…
Armed agents search for patent infringers
IFA An intrepid Register Hardware hack was this morning stopped from looking around MSI's stand at the consumer electronics show IFA, in Berlin.…
Too much protection = lack of innovation
Intellectual property laws which were designed to protect inventors are actually stifling innovation, according to a leading US law academic.…
'Extreme porn' definition dithering drags on
Those pesky critters from CAAN (Campaigning Adult Action Network) are at it again, cheekily asking the government what the extreme porn law actually means for Joe Public.…
Controversial ContactPoint hit by 'user interface problems'
ContactPoint, the government's planned database to cover every child in England and Wales, has been delayed again, but officials said fears over the potential for massive data losses were not to blame this time.…
Fancy paying to receive mobile calls?
Ofcom has published an assessment of the UK's mobile industry, which is all looking rosy we are told - but it wants to hear from the public on a range of issues including whether we should pay to receive calls.…
Watching the watchmen
The man who paid £35 for a server stuffed full of Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest customer details has been left less than impressed with the reaction of UK data regulators.…
First, get pulse bombs to work
US military boffins are preparing highly sophisticated technical defences against the dreaded electromagnetic pulse bomb, a weapon which has long been anticipated but never successfully built.…
European court clears injunction, washes hands of hacker case
The European Court of Human Rights has refused to intervene in preventing the US extradition of accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon.…
Darkroom Knight
Microsoft has inked a cross-licensing patent deal with camera maker Nikon.…
Pentagon hacker's final appeal
Accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon is approaching his own D-Day, with his fate due to be sealed in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.…
Rent due again?
Suing communication providers over alleged patent infringements has worked pretty well for Judah Klausner.…
The semantics of force feedback
Microsoft and the force-feedback technology firm, Immersion, appear to have come to final terms after six years of suing each other.…
Unnecessary for fraud clampdown
UK election scrutineers are pushing for polling stations to require tougher proof of identity to reduce the risk of ballot-rigging, but do not want voters to be forced to bring photo ID.…
Local gov hates marketeers
Most local authority electoral officers support the information commissioner's recommendation to scrap the edited electoral roll, according to a new survey.…
First they came for the mice; and I said nothing
Pentagon boffinry chiefs are on the verge of inking a deal which could see US forces equipped with "neuromorphic" imitation brain modules, each potentially as intelligent as a cat.…
Tech giants forge Axis of Email™
Yahoo! has reinstated its free webmail services in Iran, less than a year after the firm blocked new registrations from the country citing tighter US sanctions.…
Battery life & range crap - but at least it's heavy
The long-bedevilled Bowman digital comms infrastructure for the British army is continuing to enrage and frustrate its users - a British commander in Afghanistan has described Bowman as "broken" and "astonishingly bad". Bowman was finally forced through acceptance trials in 2004, after a nightmare 14-year gestation period.…
'Wilfully ignored' studies that disagreed
A leading academic has warned that the European Commission "wilfully ignored" studies that it paid for whose conclusions disagreed with its policy, and that the Commission is misleading the European Union Council, Parliament and citizens over copyright extension.…
Knowing or reckless heads on spikes, please
The Conservatives have repeated their call for those involved in data losses to face criminal charges, following the Home Office's loss of data on all prisoners.…
Now let's see it work at winter solstice
Controversial warboffinry spinoff firm Qinetiq claimed a new world record over the weekend, saying that its "Zephyr" unmanned solar-powered plane had made a 3-day flight earlier this summer. However, the test took place in uniquely favourable circumstances.…
Troubled kids' pasts open to investigators
A new database purporting to help protect vulnerable children could be used by authorities to gather evidence against them for criminal prosecutions, it has emerged.…
Mod squad issues dire warning
Media sites which ask readers to comment on news stories are at greater risk of bearing responsibility for those comments than for comments in online forums or discussion groups, leading web moderators have warned.…
Out-Byrnes Patrick Byrne
Defying New York lawmakers, "egg-cellent" electronics etailer Newegg.com has suddenly ceased collecting sales tax from the Empire State's online shoppers.…