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China wants to break free from reliance on those outside the homeland More than a hundred TSMC employees have fled the world’s largest semiconductor fab, by market cap, to join smaller, less well-known Chinese chip factories after being promised much higher salaries.…

Computer scientist Russell A. Kirsch, the inventor of the pixel and an undisputed pioneer of digital imaging, passed away on Tuesday in his Portland home from complications arising from a form of Alzheimer's disease. He was 91 years old. From a report: Russell Kirsch may not be a name that you immediately recognize, but his contributions to computer science made digital imaging possible. Born June 20, 1929 in New York City to immigrant parents from Russia and Hungary, Kirsch attended Bronx High

What is the U.S. threat to trigger 'snapback' of U.N. sanctions on Iran?  Reuters

So surprising, what with the pandemic and Uncle Sam being so welcoming for immigrants right now Too few H-1B hopefuls applied for employment visas this year that the US government has held an unprecedented second lottery to reach its annual quota.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: With classic Hangouts on the way out, Google today has two video calling apps. However, that is one too many for the company, and sources familiar with the matter tell us that Google Duo will eventually be replaced by Meet. This decision is the result of Google placing its consumer communication services -- Duo, Messages, and Android's Phone app -- under the leadership of G Suite head Javier Soltero. After the unified team was made public in May, Soltero anno

UK bailout talks for Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel fall through: FT report  Reuters

Facebook is seeking to force a face-off with Apple over its 30% in-app purchase commission fee, which Facebook suggests hurts small businesses struggling to get by during the pandemic. From a report: Facebook has never publicly gone after Apple, a key strategic partner, this aggressively. Both companies face antitrust scrutiny, which in Apple's case has centered on the very fee structure Facebook is now attacking. Facebook is trying to position itself as friendlier to small businesses than Apple

U.S. oil producer Hess cutting about 10% of workforce: sources  Reuters

Mexico City cinema, theater and bars emerge from lockdown gloom  Reuters Canada

Britain's Princess Anne turns 70 with low key celebration  Reuters

Burakovsky lifts Avalanche past Coyotes  Reuters

Pop-up COVID-19 testing sites help California farmers keep working  Reuters

Berkshire slashes Wells Fargo, JPMorgan stakes; adds Barrick Gold  Reuters

U.S. judge dismisses NRA lawsuit challenging gun shop closures in New York state  Reuters

Brazilian gaming company reaches $3 billion valuation with new investment  Reuters

Mystery of the dimming of massive star Betelgeuse explained  Reuters

How beams of light can boss around smart speakers Boffins affiliated with the University of Electro-Communications in Japan and America's University of Michigan have devised a way to use lasers to inject audio commands into mic-equipped devices.…

Football returns to Utah high school field amid pandemic  Reuters UK

Facebook bashes Apple for refusing to waive commission fees, seizing on backlash  Reuters

The Democratic and Republican nominating conventions, long mainstays of the US presidential election cycle, have been forced online, creating the biggest test yet for conducting life remotely during the coronavirus. From a report: Robbed of the energy of convention halls, the parties will seek to re-create that enthusiasm in high-production streaming events that beam their luminaries from around the country to online audiences. The Democrats, whose convention begins on Monday after a roughly mon

Sweat, smoke and flames: fighting fires in the Amazon  Reuters

TREASURIES-Yields dip but stay elevated after record week of supply  Reuters

Coronavirus vaccine developer CureVac shares surge in U.S. debut  Reuters Canada

Google will stop responding to requests for data from Hong Kong authorities with the search giant instead directing requests for user data to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the United States that is done in conjunction with the Department of Justice. From a report: The move comes after a new national security law imposed by China curbed political expression. Although Hong Kong officials have said that the law would only target a "small minority," human rights groups such as Amnesty Intern

School bus drivers lead protest to safely reopen Los Angeles schools  Reuters

Can U.S. retail sector's 'V-shaped' rebound jump the fiscal cliff?  Reuters India

'New outbreaks are the norm' says Spain as COVID-19 travel curbs pile up  Reuters

Exclusive: China ramps up U.S. oil purchases ahead of trade deal review - sources  Reuters

Report: Laureano suspension reduced to four games  Reuters

Monday storm impacted an estimated 37.7 million acres of Midwest farmland  Reuters

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo demand the same platform control -- and the same 30% fee. From a report: Yesterday, Epic used Fortnite to essentially wage open war against Apple's and Google's mobile app marketplaces. First it added a discounted "Epic Direct Payment" option alongside the standard iOS App Store and Google Play payment options in Fortnite, in direct violation of those stores' policies. Then, when Fortnite was predictably removed from both platforms, Epic filed lawsuits against both

Businessman accused of Malta journalist’s murder on hunger strike  Reuters

Porsche plans new plant for car bodies in Slovakia with up to 1,200 jobs: paper  Reuters

Exclusive: U.S.-China trade deal review planned for Saturday postponed -sources  Reuters

U.S. Postal Service watchdog to probe service woes as worries rise about mail ballots  Reuters

Commodity traders face rising finance costs as big banks pull out  Reuters

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has tried on and off for years to hide full URLs in Chrome's address bar, because apparently long web addresses are scary and evil. Despite the public backlash that came after every previous attempt, Google is pressing on with new plans to hide all parts of web addresses except the domain name in Chrome 86, this time accompanied by an admittedly hover animation. The new look builds upon the animation-less hover reveal that's already in testing, but in

Vaccine makers including Moderna must hit U.S. timing goals for full payments  Reuters

Renault want Racing Point to lose most of their points  Reuters UK

Germany declares most of Spain a virus risk region  Reuters India

And there might be a delay before devs warm up to dual screens Comment  The Surface Duo isn't an original idea – just look at LG's newest V60 smartphone or Toshiba's quirky Libretto Libretto W100 laptop. There

Trump poised to fund USPS, if Dems concede  Reuters

Chinese authorities will expand test use of the country's prototype digital currency across the nation's three leading urban clusters centered on Beijing, Shanghai and the southern cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. From a report: The move, announced by the Ministry of Commerce, expands the coverage area for testing the cyber currency to a potential user base of around 400 million, or 29% of the country's population. It has been trialed since April in four cities with a combined popula

Trump visits hospitalized younger brother in New York  Reuters

Habs' Julien heads home after heart procedure  Reuters

U.S. business inventories decline further in June  Reuters

You say broker, I say trojan, let's call the whole thing off Those wondering when the Microsoft love-in with Citrix might end will be relieved to learn that Microsoft Defender decided yesterday that Citrix Broker and High Availability Services bore all the hallmarks of a trojan.…

Atletico's cautious approach losing appeal after latest European failure  Reuters India

Top Trump homeland security appointments improper, U.S. government watchdog says  Reuters

Travel restrictions to be extended at U.S. land borders, DHS says  Reuters

If Microsoft or another company buys TikTok before President Trump bans the Chinese-owned video app on national security grounds, it will acquire a giant community of devoted fans and a lucrative platform for selling ads. It might be buying something else, too: a big population of users ages 14 and under. The minimum age for using TikTok is 13. From a report: In July, TikTok classified more than a third of its 49 million daily users in the United States as being 14 years old or younger, accordin

Trump says ready to move on coronavirus aid, blames Democrats for holdup  Reuters

Trump says ready to push out coronavirus aid, blames Democrats for holdup  Reuters

Retailers launch coalition to fight counterfeits on Amazon  Reuters

Germany blocked Chinese metals takeover on military concerns -sources  Reuters

U.S. manufacturing output rises strongly in July, but still below pre-pandemic levels  Reuters

First Safe Harbor gone, now its replacement... Schrems the breaks! The long-running kerfuffle over the so-called Privacy Shield EU-US data protection agreement took another lurch this week after politicos announced plans to ponder an "enhancement" to the framework.…

Rizwan 50 frustrates England as Pakistan pass 200-mark  Reuters UK

Uighur group urges IOC to reconsider 2022 Beijing Winter Games venue  Reuters

Ant Group makes pre-listing filing in China for blockbuster IPO  Reuters

U.S. retail sales slow in July; obstacles mount for nascent economic recovery  Reuters

*Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy A government drone pilot watched $950 meet a watery end after a bald eagle took umbrage at a DJI Phantom 4 Pro being used to map the shoreline of Lake Michigan.…

As UAE hails Israel accord, silence from Saudi Arabia  Reuters

World must not play politics with Lebanon's pain, Iran says  Reuters UK

Hezbollah will respond if Israel behind Beirut blast, says Nasrallah  Reuters UK

Walmart's Flipkart eyes alcohol delivery foray with Indian startup, letters show  Reuters

Chinese shoppers wary of frozen food imports after virus found  Reuters India

Turkey may suspend ties with UAE over Israel deal, Erdogan says  Reuters India

No fiesta in Spain as public drinking banned, clubs closed due to coronavirus surge  Reuters

Thai police arrest another leader of student protests  Reuters

TikTok's US employees are planning to file a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration executive order they say would make it illegal for their employer to pay them. From a report: Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order barring any US transactions with ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, and its subsidiaries. The language of the order is broad, so it's unclear if it would bar TikTok from paying its employees. The Trump administration didn't respond to questions

Turkey says France should refrain from escalating Mediterranean tensions  Reuters

Case to be filed in the Netherlands and London Salesforce and Oracle are to face a GDPR lawsuit in London and the Netherlands that could cost them up to €10bn in fines, a legally aggressive privacy campaign group has claimed to The Register.…

Exclusive: U.S. to make coronavirus strain for possible human challenge trials  Reuters

Plane carrying four passengers crashes in dense forest in eastern Congo  Reuters Africa

Alibaba, Xiaomi to join Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index  Reuters

OPEC+ panel shifts date of next meeting to Aug 19: sources  Reuters

Why does it always rain on me? Hewlett Packard Enterprise's UK operations were already feeling the squeeze before the COVID-19 pandemic made enterprises tighten spending on traditional infrastructure, according to the latest financial accounts.…

Breakingviews - Viewsroom: Biden takes corporate succession cue  Reuters

Factbox: How Trump followed through on his immigration campaign promises  Reuters India

At least nine EU states back sanctions against Belarus  Reuters UK

Explainer: Who pays for Mauritius oil spill and how much?  Reuters India

Take Five: Impasse!  Reuters

Australian newspaper cartoon of U.S. candidates Harris and Biden criticized as racist  Reuters Australia

Sterling rises as dollar falls amid thin August trading  Reuters

Infosec cert body looking into it as under-fire firm starts its own probe Exclusive  British infosec accreditation body CREST has changed some of its exams after cheat sheets containing exam answers and practical walkthroughs were posted on GitHub in a repo that NCC Group confirmed included its own documents.…

Moscow Exchange to launch early trading on FX, derivatives market in 2021  Reuters

Coronavirus pushes Q2 net profit of Russian diamond miner Alrosa down 98%  Reuters UK

Chinese LGBT group ShanghaiPRIDE halts work to 'protect safety'  Reuters

Oman supports UAE decision to normalise ties with Israel  Reuters

TGS still seeks seismic tie-ups after failed PGS data bid  Reuters

Gold rush at Turkish bazaar a test of trust for lowly lira  Reuters UK

Protests swell in Belarus, Lukashenko blames foreigners  Reuters

The Register Theatre Company presents: Waiting for Windows Bork!Bork!Bork!  Sometimes Windows sits and thinks, and sometimes it just sits. Today's entry in The Register's pit of signage silage is an example of Microsoft's former finest that sums up the last few months better than we could ever hope to.…

A security researcher was awarded a $6,000 bug bounty payout after he found Instagram retained photos and private direct messages on its servers long after he deleted them. From a report: Independent security researcher Saugat Pokharel found that when he downloaded his data from Instagram, a feature it launched in 2018 to comply with new European data rules, his downloaded data contained photos and private messages with other users that he had previously deleted. It's not uncommon for companies

South Korea's Moon to focus on victims in 'comfort women' dispute with Japan  Reuters India

JGB yield rises after poor U.S. auction, 10-yr yield at 6-week high  Reuters

Lawyer driving case said to have been re-assigned and filed complaint against boss over alleged sub-$40m settlement United States labor secretary Eugene Scalia has reportedly personally intervened in Oracle’s wage discrimination case and suggested it could settle for a modest sum.…

And with a wave of his hand, the printer was fixed On Call  Friday is here and while we cannot promise a break in the weather, we can bring forth another recollection from those brave souls staffing the helpdesk courtesy of The Register's On Call mailbag.…

Austria's foreign minister joins call for sanctions against Belarus  Reuters

India's July palm oil imports rise to 10-month high - trade body  Reuters India

Militants kill two police in Kashmir ahead of India's Independence Day  Reuters

If you haven’t touched yours for six-plus months, you have to cough up to prevent erasure come November Docker has warned that it plans to delete 4.5 petabytes of container images that haven’t been used for six or more months.…

Britons rush home from France to beat new quarantine rules  Reuters

China Sinopharm's potential COVID-19 vaccine triggers antibodies in clinical trials: journal  Reuters

Britain lines up more potential COVID-19 vaccine supplies with J&J, Novavax deals  Reuters

Angry Birds maker happy as stay-at-home gaming boosts profit  Reuters

Not just Germany stepping up to the plate – Ireland, too, we're told Britain's NHS has released its second go at a contact-tracing app to help limit the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus infections, thanks in part to some help from the neighbors.…

Trucks, excavators to help push China's diesel demand to record  Reuters

Vietnam to buy Russian COVID-19 vaccine  Reuters

Czech PM Babis says Belarus election must be repeated, wants EU council call  Reuters

Container line Hapag-Lloyd almost doubles H1 profit, keeps 2020 outlook  Reuters India

Amazon starts online drug sales in Indian city  Reuters

Google to end responding directly to data requests from Hong Kong authorities: newspaper  Reuters.com

Google stops responding directly to data requests from Hong Kong government  Reuters

If you think the quantum world is confusing, wait until you see the pricing Amazon Web Services has fired up a cloud quantum computing service.…

A faltering U.S.-China trade deal is now the nations' strongest link  Reuters India

An anonymous reader shares a report: The followers poured in. Then the likes. Then tens of thousands of people watched my TikTok video. The clip itself was of a few Motherboard staffers winning a match in the hugely popular game Call of Duty: Warzone; TikTok is full of streamers and players uploading their wins or soul-crushing loses. The video itself isn't good -- there's no slick editing, no captivating TikTok personality talking to camera, and certainly no dancing -- but in a few short hours

‘Honoring the honest’ is the catchphrase for massive new online scheme India has announced a new technology-powered tax collection scheme that it hopes will increase its revenue.…

China's economic recovery underwhelms as consumer comeback stays elusive  Reuters

Japan dining chain Ootoya ties up with online grocer amid hostile bid  Reuters

Malaysia's economy shrinks 17.1% in Q2, worst contraction in over 20 years  Reuters

Ponders giving 'em immunity too for countermeasures up to hacking back. Australia’s government has proposed giving itself the power to take over private enterprises’ response to cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure.…

$2.5m-a-year CEO set to take a pay cut, so that's all right, then Updated  Mozilla has renewed its lucrative nine-figure deal with Google to ensure its search engine is the default in Firefox in the US and other parts of the world.…

Dollar finds support as coronavirus, China data sap confidence  Reuters UK

As Democrats and Republicans prepare to hold their national conventions starting next week, YouTube on Thursday announced updates to its policies on deceptive videos and other content designed to interfere with the election. From a report: The world's largest video platform, with more than 2 billion users a month, will ban videos containing information that was obtained through hacking and could meddle with elections or censuses. That would include material like hacked campaign emails with detai

Oil slips below $45 on demand doubts, rising supply  Reuters UK

Peru surpasses 500,000 coronavirus cases, marks highest fatality rate in LatAm  Reuters

Google yoinks smash-hit video game from Play store, too Updated  Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, filed a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday accusing the iGiant of illegally monopolizing iOS app distribution and app payments.…

Hundreds of migrants cross Channel in dinghies to England | Pictures  Reuters

Japanese shipping company says Mauritius government has requested compensation  Reuters India

Mexico, with over 500,000 coronavirus cases, to help with vaccine  Reuters

From Russia, with love The NSA and FBI are sounding the alarm over a dangerous new strain of Linux malware being employed by Russian government hackers often dubbed the Fancy Bear crew.…

World share markets dip on lukewarm data; oil falls  Reuters India

A two-day-old decentralized cryptocurrency called YAM collapsed this week after its creators revealed that a software bug had effectively vetoed human governance. From a report: "At approximately 6PM UTC, on Wednesday, August 12, we discovered a bug in the YAM rebasing contract that would mint far more YAM than intended to sell to the Uniswap YAM/yCRV pool, sending a large amount of excess YAM to the protocol reserve," the YAM project explained in a post on Thursday. "Given YAM's governance modu

Intel on Thursday disclosed a new method for making transistors on semiconductors that its chief architect said could boost the performance Intel's next round of processors by as much as 20%. From a report: The Santa Clara, California-based company is one of the few remaining in the world that both designs and manufactures its own chips. But its manufacturing operations have become a concern among investors after Intel last month said that its next-generation chip-making process, called its 7-na

Hubble probe readings may reveal what caused Betelgeuse to briefly dim The light from the red supergiant Betelgeuse dimmed to a record low earlier this year, leading stargazers to speculate it was about to explode as a supernova. But now it appears the aging sun merely had a stellar sneeze.…

Day one: We're worth half a billion! Day Two: We're nearly worthless A two-day-old decentralized cryptocurrency called YAM collapsed on Wednesday after its creators revealed that a software bug had effectively vetoed human governance.…

Oslo outfit ups ante to show off privacy prowess in 3.2 Oslo-based Vivaldi has released an update to its Android browser replete with additional weaponry for the ongoing Tracker and Ad Blocker arms race.…

'We need this issue solved ASAP' Life ain't so suite (pardon) for a bunch of Google Apps Script developers thanks to a bug preventing them from using the platform's debug mode.…

Promises to ladle out more info on grand SRAM at Hot Chips Samsung Foundry has begun rollout of its latest 3D IC packaging tech, dubbed “eXtended-Cube” or “X-Cube*", which it claims can result in lower power consumption and faster overall speeds.…

This is how you win an election Updated  Since the United States has had so much success flattening the curve (vertically), President Donald Trump has turned his attention to more pressing matters.…

Chairman of iPhone maker tells investors local markets will grow their own manufacturing ecosystems China's days as "the world's factory" are numbered, according to Foxconn chairman Young Liu.…

Never mind the delays, competition, or departures – we've got a strategy Intel has revealed details of its 11th Generation Core technology, including its Tiger Lake laptop-friendly system-on-chip family featuring Willow Cove CPU cores and so-called SuperFin 10nm transistors.…

Stop sniggering, don't forget those 'indirect taxes' Amazon says it pays Unlike arch-rival Amazon, eBay has assured the 300,000 third parties that use its online marketplaces it will continue to absorb the UK government's Digital Services Tax (DST) rather than pass it on.…

Stealing nudists' laptops? An appetite for cocaine? They're evolving! Video  Footage from northern Germany appears to document an alarming development in the arsenal of wild boars – amphibious assaults.…

Get off my grass! ... And onto my WFH desktop Ink-tank printers flew off distributors' shelves in the first half of this year and onto the desks of work-from-home employees, providing one of the brighter spots for printer land in the first half of 2020.…

Finally, a digital transformation that really matters Charles Darwin's legacy lives not just in the idea of evolution by natural selection, but also in the samples he collected.…

Big Red: Everything's fine A bunch of Oracle developers supporting its Commerce systems are being let go as Big Red seeks to downsize the struggling platform.…

Lenovo says online sales soared in Q1 and has new hyper-plan for its data center unit Lenovo's long-suffering data centre group has posted considerably increased revenue and a modest loss, thanks to increased engagements with hyperscale clients.…

Heir to 2017’s successful Spectrum Next hits target in minutes The team behind 2017’s successful re-imagining of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum is back with another new cut of the classic British Micro.…

Three little words: Patches, passwords, policies The continued inability of organizations to patch security vulnerabilities in a timely manner, combined with guessable passwords and the spread of automated hacking tools, is making it pretty easy for miscreants, professionals, and thrill-seekers to break into corporate networks.…

Also hosed out many Datrium staff on day one VMware has made a round of layoffs that appear to be one of its regular consolidations but The Register has learned coincided with some internal re-organisation.…

Files 'Please explain' memo to Washington as revenue jumps 29 percent and profit pops even higher Chinese web giant Tencent has reported strong growth and brushed off the potential impact of the USA’s proposed ban on its WeChat service and cloud operation.…

But only to bits that aren’t conflict hot spots India has taken a small step towards restoring meaningful internet access to the disputed states of Jammu and Kashmir, by ordering a trial restoration of 4G services in select areas.…

Q4 revenue took a nasty kick in the COVIDs, but profit bounced anyway Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins says his IT giant is considering an as-a-service offering for its core networking hardware.…

Venerable Arecibo Observatory showing its age Pic  America's largest radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, has been forced to shut down after a falling cable slashed a 100-foot rent in its 1,000-foot reflector dish.…

CEO says making cyber-cabbies employees would be a bridge too far Final update  Uber's CEO today threatened to suspend all of its dial-a-ride services in California should a judge not grant an emergency appeal to let it continue classifying its app's drivers as contract workers.…

UK sales chief treated her unequally, rules Employment Tribunal A Splunk saleswoman who brought in eight-figure deals has won a sex discrimination lawsuit against the data analytics 'n' SIEM vendor after she was "pushed aside for the old boys' network".…

'A more productive way to get things done' – in the States only Microsoft has followed the Surface Duo price and ship date with some detailed specs that will leave all but the company's most determined fans struggling to say much more than: "Is that it?"…

US consumer nonprofit alleges it was false advertising What's that barging into Zoom's socially distanced virtual family reunion? It's a lawsuit from US nonprofit Consumer Watchdog alleging the videoconferencing giant misled the public over its purported use of end-to-end encryption.…

Famed IP holder pops champers as Cupertino plots appeal A jury in Texas yesterday agreed that Apple should cough up $506.2m in FRAND royalties for including 4G LTE capability on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch without buying a licence from a group of IP holders.…

Tipped to appear on upcoming Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G Samsung has lifted the lid on its new Adaptive Frequency screen tech, which dynamically adjusts a display's refresh rate based on the app being used. The firm says the tech is already commercially available, with plans to debut it on the Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G flagship blower.…

Names, email addresses, phone numbers, job titles, company names, country of residence etc. pinched Updated  Cybersecurity training organisation the SANS Institute suffered the loss of 28,000 items of personally identifiable information (PII) after a staffer's email account was accessed by malicious people.…

Easing users into the world of Windows 10 IoT Enterprises eyeing their crusty old Windows CE apps with alarm as Microsoft yanks the plug on its legacy operating systems will be relieved to see the company making good on its promised CE container technology.…