Science

• Arm rages against the insecure chip machine with new Morello architecture

  Prototypes now available for testing
  Dan Robinson Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 18:21 UTC

  Arm has made available for testing prototypes of its Morello architecture, aimed at bringing features into the design of CPUs that provide greater robustness and make them resistant to certain attack vectors. If it performs as expected, it will likely become a fundamental part of future processor designs.

  The Morello programme involves Arm collaborating with the University of Cambridge and others in tech to develop a processor architecture that is intended to be fundamentally more secure. Morello prototype boards are now being released for testing by developers and security specialists, based on a prototype system-on-chip (SoC) that Arm has built.

  Arm said that the limited-edition evaluation boards are based on the Morello prototype architecture embedded into an Armv8.2-A processor. This is an adaptation of the architecture in the Arm Neoverse N1 design aimed at data centre workloads.

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• Multi-level marketing corporation that sells weightloss products sues ex-exec over 'fraudulent' Dell deal

  Alleges he had an off-the-books agreement with reseller
  Jude Karabus Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 17:29 UTC 2

  MLM firm Herbalife, which sells diet-linked products but styles itself as a "nutrition company", has accused one of its former execs of cutting a "fraudulent" $20m deal with a Dell reseller.

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• '95% original' film star Spitfire could be yours for a mere £4.5m (or 0.05 Pogbas)

  Freshly overhauled, several careful owners
  Gareth Corfield Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 16:28 UTC 7

  Fancy buying an almost-original and flyable Second World War Supermarine Spitfire? If you've got £4.5m gathering dust in the bank, today might be your lucky day.

  Spitfire LF Mk.IXB MH415 is up for sale, with various news outlets reporting its sale price as around £4.5m.

  Built in 1943, the veteran of two wars and several decades of airshow flying was fully refurbished over the last few years and has just six flying hours on its newly reset clock. Its pristine Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 engine has just 11 hours, meaning the Spitfire can fly for months or years before needing another total overhaul.

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• You might want to consider the cost of not upgrading legacy tech, UK's Department for Work and Pensions told

  Processes relying on 1980s ICL mainframe contributed to £1bn pension black hole
  Lindsay Clark Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 15:16 UTC 8

  Brit MPs have told the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) it should factor in the cost of not upgrading a 34-year-old legacy system when reviewing tech investments after it contributed to a £1bn pension shortfall.

  The department should consider whether there are "cost-effective ways to upgrade its IT systems and enhance its administrative processes to ensure the quality and timeliness of management information and reduce the risk of repeated errors," a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.

  This follows a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) which found that a legacy ICL-era mainframe was one of the causes behind the failure to pay more than £1bn in state pensions.

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• Joint European Torus celebrates 100,000 pulses: Neither Brexit nor middle age has stopped '80s era experiment

  Fusion energy projects nearing 40th anniversary
  Richard Speed Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 14:29 UTC 10

  A milestone was reached this week by the Joint European Torus (JET): the 100,000th pulse of the fusion energy experiment.

  JET, which is located at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the English county of Oxfordshire, has a history going back to 1975. The Culham site was chosen in 1977 and the doughnut-shaped tokamak achieved its first plasma in 1983 (the Queen did the official switching on duties the following year.)

  In 1991 JET performed the world's first deuterium-tritium experiment and by 1997 it achieved 22.5 megajoules of fusion energy (and 16 megawatts of fusion power) in a dedicated deuterium-tritium run of experiments. In 2021 it completed a second full-power run using deuterium and tritium.

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• Intel plunking down $20bn for at least two chip factories in Ohio

  Announcement scheduled for today as Gelsinger meets with Biden at the White House
  Laura Dobberstein Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 13:24 UTC 6

  Intel is scheduled to announce on Friday that it is committing $20bn to build semiconductor plants outside Columbus, Ohio, thereby strengthening domestic supply chains, according to reports from the White House.

  The US government's canned statement on Thursday said the effort would create 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs.

  Intel told Time the money will build at least two semiconductor plants on a 1,000-acre site that could expand up to 2,000 acres and eight fabs.

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• UKCloud acquired: Public sector specialist finally bags investment from current chair and private equity after reporting steep losses

  Wolves no longer at the door of struggling Brit cloud slinger
  Paul Kunert Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 12:43 UTC 2

  Updated Private investors led by current chairman Jeff Thomas have bought loss-making public sector service provider UKCloud for an unspecified sum, ending the months-long pursuit for potentially life-or-death funding.

  Hadston 2 Limited, set up by Thomas, is joined by BGF Group plc and Digital Alpha, buying a company that has three brands selling multi-cloud services to clients including central and local government, police, defence and the NHS.

  "The funding provides a strong foundation on which to assemble a portfolio of innovative businesses promoting the ethical and sustainable use of data to drive positive change in our communities and economy," said Thomas in a statement.

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• 'Please download in Microsoft Excel': Meet the tech set to monitor IT performance across central UK government

  Influencing billions in spending, the Cabinet Office will keep tabs on Whitehall with… a spreadsheet?!?
  Lindsay Clark Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 11:24 UTC 38

  Exclusive The UK's Cabinet Office has launched a new approach designed to assess the IT resource needs of central government departments and measure their performance: emailing a spreadsheet and asking for multiple replies.

  In a letter seen by The Register, Joanna Davinson, executive director at the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), said her team had created a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Digital Dashboard which in December was presented to the Functional Leadership Group.

  That MVP has now been sent to Whitehall's chief digital and information officers (CDIOs).

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• BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

  And look, your COVID pass is all melted...
  Simon Travaglia Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 10:32 UTC 33

  Episode 1 There's been a fire.

  "Not in the building?!" I gasp at the Boss' smoke-tanned face.

  "Just outside the building," he says.

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• 'Can you identify your assailants?' Yes, they were pixelated! I'd know them anywhere!

  'Inside' knowledge on the image database conundrum – at 25 frames per second
  Alistair Dabbs Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 09:30 UTC 26

  Something for the Weekend, Sir? Stop that uterus! It stole my wallet!

  What do you mean, "Can you identify the uterus in question?" It looked like a uterus! Or, as we've been singing it all through Christmas, a wooooom*.

  Talk about getting the new year off to a bad start – I've just been robbed by a delinquent reproductive organ. Yet the all signs were there: I knew 2022 would be doomed back in early December when I read that the Salzburg Schokolade company, inventors of the mighty last-minute-airport-gift-shop chocolate ball Mozartkugel, had gone bust.

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• Why should I pay for that security option? Hijacking only happens to planes

  But if I give him my bank details, I'll be rich!
  Richard Speed Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 08:30 UTC 27

  On Call Friday is here. We'd suggest an adult beverage or two to celebrate, but only if you BYOB. While you fill your suitcase, may we present an episode of On Call in which a reader saves his boss from a dunking.

  Our tale comes from a reader Regomised as "Ed" and is set earlier this century. Ed was working as a developer in a biotech lab. He rarely spoke to the director, but did speak to the director's personal assistant a lot.

  This PA was very much a jack of all trades (and master of... well, you get the drift). HR? He was in charge of that. Ops? That too. Anything technical? Of course. Heck, even though the firm had its very own bean counter, one had to go through the PA to get anything paid or budgets approved.

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