Bootnotes

• NASA fixes Hubble Space Telescope using backup power supply unit, payload computer

  Hardware gremlins plagued orbiting observatory for over a month
  Katyanna Quach Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 21:02 UTC 46

  NASA’s beloved Hubble Space Telescope is able to snap the heavens again after overcoming a hardware issue that had plagued it for more than a month.

  Its onboard payload computer, which controls its instruments, mysteriously froze, forcing the main computer to put the orbiting observatory's sensors into an inactive safe mode. By utilizing redundant components, the US space agency was finally able to bring Hubble back online.

  “NASA has successfully switched to backup hardware on the Hubble Space Telescope, including powering on the backup payload computer, on July 15,” it said in a statement today.

  Continue reading

• Windows 10 to hang on for five more years with 21H2 update

  Lots of time for legacy users
  Richard Speed Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 20:05 UTC 29

  Reminding the world that there's more to life than Windows 11, Microsoft has promised a feature update for Windows 10 in the form of 21H2.

  It's a little confusing, because the current preview of Windows 11 also calls itself 21H2. It wouldn't be a Windows update without some attempt to baffle users. And goodness, thanks to the hardware requirements of Windows 11, there are going to be rather a lot of Windows 10 users still out there.

  Indeed, in a memo announcing the W10 update John Cable, veep of program management for Windows Servicing and Delivery, highlighted the more than 1.3 billion monthly active Windows 10 devices out there, many of which will not be eligible for the new shiny in the latter part of this year.

  Continue reading

• Refreshing: An Office update that won't frighten the horses

  Microsoft reins in some of its excesses with a visual tidy-up
  Richard Speed Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 19:09 UTC 10

  Microsoft's much-trumpeted "visual refresh" for its suite of Office applications has begun making its way out to users enrolled in the Insider programme, last night slithering onto both the Windows 11 Intel and ARM test setups at Vulture Central.

  To be fair, our Arm setup consists of a Raspberry Pi-400 running a preview of Microsoft's next version of Windows and we were interested in seeing how it would cope.

  The refresh came after we'd subjected the Pi to the native ARM64 version of Microsoft's cash cow and it updated without drama after we told Word we were keen to try out the new experience.

  Continue reading

• Dutch Queen, robot involved in opening of 3D-printed bridge in red-light district

  Have we been smoking something?
  Matt Dupuy Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 18:03 UTC 8

  Queen Maxima of the Netherlands enlisted the help of a small robot to open a 12m (40ft) 3D-printed steel bridge across a canal in Amsterdam's red-light district earlier this week.

  The structure's opening – the description of which sounds like the a game of Consequences based on a drunken Daily Mail columnist's fever dream – took place when the Queen pressed a green button to turn on a robot arm, which cut the ribbon with a pair of scissors.

  It appears that all concerned (except the robot) then decamped to a bar to have a drink, as shown in the video below. When in Rome and all that.

  Continue reading

• You'll want to shut down the Windows Print Spooler service (yes, again): Another privilege escalation bug found

  PrintNightmare? More like Groundhog Day for admins
  Richard Speed Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 17:28 UTC 18

  Microsoft has shared guidance revealing yet another vulnerability connected to its Windows Print Spooler service, saying it is "developing a security update."

  The latest Print Spooler service vuln has been assigned CVE-2021-34481, and can be exploited to elevate privilege to SYSTEM level via file operations.

  This can be used by malware already running on a Windows machine or a rogue user to fully compromise the box. The solution? For now, you can only "stop and disable the Print Spooler service," disabling both the ability to print locally and remotely. Which is not brilliant news for enterprise nor for all those folk home schooling and printing out work from local printers.

  Continue reading

• Wanted: State-backed bandits planning cyberattacks on US infrastructure. Reward: $10m

  Cops and dobbers: Uncle Sam dangles cash incentive for tattletales
  Tim Richardson Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 16:30 UTC 10

  The US is offering a $10m reward to anyone who dobs in digital outlaws responsible for foreign government-backed cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure such as pipelines, power grids, and communication networks.

  The cash incentive is part of the US State Department's Rewards for Justice (RFJ) programme and the ongoing war on cybercrime that has in recent months crippled fuel pipelines and meat production.

  Since it was launched in 1984, the RFJ has paid some $200m to more than 100 informants across the world who have passed on titbits concerning national security.

  Continue reading

• Microsoft adds cloud enablement to 1970s Altair 8800 tech

  Back to an era when 'cloud' meant 'it's probably going to rain'
  Richard Speed Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 15:45 UTC 9

  Microsoft got back to its roots this week with another go – this time cloud-enabled – at an Altair 8800 running on Azure Sphere hardware.

  Readers with long memories might remember Azure Sphere hardware being used to resurrect the 1970s box in 2018. The latest implementation brings things up to date with new development boards and the inevitable nod to Microsoft's cloud technology.

  The 8800 itself is not running in Microsoft's cloud, but on Azure Sphere hardware. An open-source Intel 8080 emulator lurks under the hood, on top of which runs Altair BASIC and CP/M.

  Continue reading

• Get a load of fancypants no-enemies AMD-Xilinx: 'Large majority' of third parties 'had no concerns' about pair's hookup

  British competition watchdog publishes details of why it approved AMD/Xilinx merger
  Tim Richardson Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 15:00 UTC 4

  The UK’s competition regulator has finally published its reasons why it has decided not to stand in the way of the $35bn merger between AMD and Xilinx.

  After two months of number crunching, market sleuthing and evidence-taking, the Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA) concluded that it “does not believe that it is or may be the case that the merger [between AMD and Xilinx] may be expected to result in an SLC (substantial lessening of competition) within a market or markets in the United Kingdom.”

  What's more, the CMA also found little opposition within the industry even going as far as to say that the merger could be "pro-competitive".

  Continue reading

• JavaScript, GitHub, AWS crowned winners in massive survey of 32,000 developers

  Devs across the world reveal their tools, language choices, and more
  Tim Anderson Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 13:00 UTC 14

  A survey of nearly 32,000 developers has confirmed the dominance of JavaScript, showing a remarkable 91 per cent using GitHub, and growth in use of AWS despite the efforts of Microsoft and Google.

  The survey was huge, with sections on 13 different programming languages, big data, databases, DevOps, developer demographics, microservices, collaborating tools, testing, and more.

  JavaScript topped the language popularity charts, with 69 per cent usage, or 39 per cent when developers were asked to specify their "primary programming language."

  Continue reading

• Britney fan businessman accidentally buys 10,000 Celtic nationalist T-shirts

  Surplus stock specialist finds out the hard way how that kind of thing can happen
  Matt Dupuy Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 12:30 UTC 74

  A UK businessman hoping to create merchandise to sell to fans of singer Britney Spears has found himself instead lumbered with 10,000 misspelled T-shirts advertising a nationalist breakaway for a region of northern France.

  Karl Baxter, managing director of Wholesale Clearance UK Ltd – a company based in Poole, Dorset, specialising in "bankrupt and surplus stock, as well as end of line clearances to individuals and companies of all sizes" – had hoped to capitalise on the #FreeBritney movement and sell shirts to fans campaigning to end the 'Oops!... I Did It Again' star's controversial conservatorship.

  Continue reading

• Google demonstrates impractical improvement in quantum error correction – but it does work

  Scale would need to be cranked way up to have an impact, however
  Lindsay Clark Fri 16 Jul 2021 // 11:59 UTC 8

  Google has demonstrated a significant step forward in the error correction in quantum computing – although the method described in a paper this week remains some way off a practical application.

  In December 2019, Google claimed quantum supremacy when its 54-qubits processor Sycamore completed a task in 200 seconds that the search giant said would take a classical computer 10,000 years to finish. The claim was then hotly contested by IBM, but that is another story.

  Continue reading