Edit sensitive PDFs locally with Systweak tools for conversion, compression, signatures, security, and more.

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Edit sensitive PDFs locally with Systweak tools for conversion, compression, signatures, security, and more.

The post Systweak Keeps Sensitive PDF Work Off the Cloud for $39.99 appeared first on TechRepublic.

The UK's statistical regulator has told NHS England to ensure ministers are briefed accurately following a row over data used to promote the purported benefits of a Palantir-run platform. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) said the health quango had accepted that it needed to communicate more clearly about data purporting to measure the benefits of the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which is based on the US spy-tech firm's technology under a £330 million contract. "We expect NHS England to ensure that any figures cited by ministers or in official briefings about the FDP and its effectiveness are communicated in a clear, accurate manner," the OSR said. Campaign group Foxglove called on health officials and ministers to correct the record with Parliament and the media on data used to illustrate the FDP's success. Earlier this month, the OSR, part of the UK Statistics Authority, said it was assessing how NHS England used data to make claims about the FDP's performance, which sometimes made its way into ministerial statements. The move followed a Freedom of Information request from Foxglove, which found that nearly a third of NHS trusts using Palantir's health data platform were performing fewer patient procedures than before it went live. Foxglove also said Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust accounted for 84 percent of the reported fall in outpatient waiting lists, while only 16 trusts were using the tool provided by Palantir. The results sit uneasily alongside NHS England's claim that, as of June, 139 trusts used the FDP, with 137 reporting benefits. Another commonly quoted data item found that an Inpatient Care Coordination Solution (CCS) tool based on the FDP had resulted in 111,589 additional patients undergoing procedures in operating theaters. Writing to James Murray, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Foxglove noted that NHS England had said in documentation that it was inappropriate to "draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for" in its published FDP data. Foxglove said: "The claim that Palantir's FDP has delivered a large number of additional operations has been widely repeated." At the time, the OSR said it was assessing the information around NHS England's claims about the FDP's performance. Publishing its response yesterday, the regulator said it had engaged NHS England statisticians and conducted its own desk research based on information provided by the NHS and others who raised concerns about data used to promote the FDP's benefits. It noted that on June 6, NHS England added a sentence to published data, which read: "We cannot therefore draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for." It also updated the methods page. "NHS England has told OSR that this was motivated, in part, by NHS England having received numerous Freedom of Information requests to provide more detail on how data provided by FDP was analysed," the OSR said. "While the addition of this sentence is welcome, we understand why many users took this to represent a significant change in how NHS England was communicating the benefits of FDP data in relation to NHS performance." The statement welcomed NHS England's decision to acknowledge that there is "more that can be done to strengthen messaging around the FDP benefits data and its onward interpretation by users." NHS England agreed to add further caveats to the published data and ensure public communications clearly identify before-and-after comparisons and explain that they do not establish causality. It has also commissioned Imperial College London to evaluate the FDP, looking at products including OPTICA "where the issue around causality is most evident." OPTICA is designed to streamline the patient discharge process. It was based on Palantir's technology built under a £60 million series of contracts awarded without competition and then transferred to the FDP. NHS England said it would publish the results. The OSR said it wanted to be kept informed of progress against a series of other commitments by NHS England's Head of Profession for Statistics. An NHS England spokesperson said: "We welcome this review from the Office for Statistics Regulation into the presentation and communication of information about the Federated Data Platform, which found the updates we made to our website have helped to make information more explicitly clear. We are implementing the recommendations in full to provide further clarity about the patient benefits being achieved through the use of the technology." Donald Campbell, advocacy director at Foxglove, said: "This damning report makes it clearer than ever that the Government and Palantir must withdraw these dodgy marketing claims and correct the record. "Even the head of NHS England has admitted personally raising doubts about the claims made on Palantir's benefits to the NHS. This intervention by the stats watchdog should be the nail in the coffin for the fairy stories we've heard about the extra operations supposedly delivered by Palantir's platform. "With a new government, there's a chance to draw a line under the previous administration's shameful practice of running marketing for this Trump-aligned tech giant. The new health secretary must withdraw these figures, correct the record with Parliament and the media, and ensure that the debate about whether Palantir should have a place in our NHS is conducted based on reliable, verifiable evidence – not spin." ®

Adobe Acrobat now lets WhatsApp Web and Windows users open and annotate PDFs inside a chat, removing the usual download-first routine while retaining password protection and end-to-end encryption.

The Irish government has kicked a Microsoft procurement potentially worth €1 billion into touch amid a political debate about the nation's overreliance on US tech providers and a move to free and open source software. In Ireland's parliament (Dáil Éireann), Frankie Feighan, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, said the recent tender for suppliers to take part in a framework agreement to supply Microsoft software and services had been canceled after "matters of concern were raised by an interested party." "Having carefully considered those matters, the [Office of Government Procurement] determined it was prudent to cancel the competition and notify the market accordingly," he said. The Irish government's current framework, valued at a maximum of €350 million, is set to expire in September 2027. Cian O'Callaghan, deputy leader of the opposition Social Democrats, said the estimated value range of the proposed replacement had been between €750 million and €1 billion, according to an earlier response in parliament. He challenged the Irish government over whether it had assessed the risks of the new Microsoft framework "at a time when other European countries are moving away from technological dependence on American companies." O'Callaghan pressed the government on whether it had considered alternatives to Microsoft. "There are a number of alternatives out there that other European countries and states are moving towards," he said. "They are doing so for value-for-money reasons, and so they are no longer technologically dependent on the US but can rely on European-regulated services and products. There is LibreOffice, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Nextcloud, Thunderbird and openDesk by Germany's Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen Verwaltung, ZenDiS, which is a readily assembled government-grade suite." Feighan responded that the Irish government was reviewing the operation of the existing framework and talking to experts in the hope that it could improve the "scope, specification, and features" of the framework. However, he acknowledged that the framework covered only Microsoft licenses and services. O'Callaghan said: "What I do not understand is why alternatives to Microsoft have not been at least explored as part of this process. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein recently moved 30,000 staff from Microsoft to LibreOffice, Linux, Thunderbird, and Open-Xchange. It is saving more than €15 million a year. The French police, the Gendarmerie Nationale, switched over 100,000 desktops to Linux. They will save roughly €500 million, half a billion, over 15 years." He again pressed the minister on why the government had not considered alternatives to Microsoft, particularly given concerns about digital sovereignty and Ireland's current presidency of the Council of the European Union. Feighan responded that the government intended to publish a new Microsoft tender "as early as is feasible." Digital sovereignty has become a pressing issue in Europe since President Trump returned to power, and it was only heightened after Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor, was sanctioned by the US government and later lost access to his work-based Microsoft services. Microsoft claimed the ICC had removed his access to its services. The Dutch press later reported Microsoft had told the ICC it would have to end services to the whole organization unless the court denied Khan access. Gartner has estimated investment in sovereign cloud across the EU is set to treble over the next five to seven years as the bloc seeks an exit ramp from dominant US suppliers amid heightened geopolitical tensions. European providers account for only around 15 percent of the region's cloud infrastructure. The EU has proposed new procurement measures that would require public sector buyers to take digital sovereignty into account when launching tenders. The plans also include procurement guidance intended to encourage greater use of open source alternatives to proprietary software. Outside the public sector, others are taking an interest in digital sovereignty. Last week, European aerospace giant Airbus announced it was migrating its most critical applications for sensitive workloads from AWS to French cloud provider Scaleway as part of a drive to increase digital sovereignty. ®

Samsung Galaxy Watch AGEs Index offers blood sugar-related health insight without a CGM. Learn how it works, what it tracks, and who may benefit from using it.

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Samsung Galaxy Watch AGEs Index offers blood sugar-related health insight without a CGM. Learn how it works, what it tracks, and who may benefit from using it.

The post Samsung Galaxy Watch Helps Track Blood Sugar Health Without a CGM appeared first on TechRepublic.

The adjudicatory board is removing the word “independent” from public-facing descriptions “in light of recent legal developments,” a spokesperson said.

© Federal News Network

The UK government is scrapping the department charged with leading digital and tech change across the public sector. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) – created by former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – will see its responsibilities split among other departments after Science Secretary Liz Kendall was axed by new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is set to become the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and reports suggest it will take over responsibility for digital transformation in government from the disbanded DSIT. After the Labour government took office in 2024, it moved the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Central Digital and Data Office from the Cabinet Office to DSIT. They now appear likely to find a new home in DCMS. The new round of musical chairs may be an unwelcome distraction for the team. GDS is responsible for setting the digital strategy and managing digital performance for government. For example, 18 months after it moved to DSIT, GDS launched a "roadmap for modern digital government." It promised to harness AI for the public good and to strengthen digital public infrastructure. It also said it would redesign digital public services for people and businesses "by setting high standards and working together as one public sector." However, a recent select committee report noted that although the government set out its intention to make the UK "a truly digital state," it had not "set out what this means in detail or in practice and there is no clear plan to translate this vision into a reality." DSIT also led the Matrix shared services cluster, a project that involves moving nine government organizations to shared ERP and HR systems based on Workday technology. It was recently rated "red" in a government projects report, meaning it has "major issues" with its schedule, budget, quality, or delivery of benefits, and the problems "do not appear to be manageable or resolvable" at this stage. The Register doesn't know whether another change of departmental letterhead will help, but we'll see. We have contacted the Cabinet Office, DSIT, and DCMS for further clarification on the new responsibilities. DSIT's role as the government's interface with the tech industry will also move to another department, with responsibilities going to the new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST). Jonathan Reynolds was named Secretary of State for the department. Kanishka Narayan has meanwhile been elevated to the Cabinet-attending role of Minister for Artificial Intelligence, working jointly in the Cabinet Office and BIST. ®

The U.S. Air Force has handed a Georgia drone maker a contract worth up to $90 million to build small, expendable aircraft designed to deny enemies the ability to fly. Tandem Defense, based in Richmond Hill, Georgia, won a new contract, meaning the U.S. Air Force can order any quantity of equipment up to the […]

The UK government's projects authority has sounded the alarm over progress on Skynet 6, the estimated £8.35 billion program to upgrade the military's satellite communications. The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) rated the Skynet 6 project red, which means "successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable" in its current form. The definition cites "major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable." A red confidence rating means the project may need to be rescoped or reassessed, but does not necessarily mean it will fail. Nonetheless, it is hardly reassuring for a program intended to provide the UK's military satellite communications through 2041 and beyond. Skynet has been around since the 1960s. The first satellite in the latest iteration, Skynet 6A, was originally due to launch in 2025 but is now scheduled to fly aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2027. It is being built by Airbus. The project also includes Service Delivery Wrap (SDW), which plans to operate the UK's constellation of military satellites and ground stations under a £400 million contract awarded to Babcock in 2023. The wider program will also provide "new ground and user terminal capabilities to ensure that UK war fighters have modern communications technology worldwide," the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. A separate aspect of the project, Skynet Enduring Capability, is set to offer new space-based technology from 2028 onward. NISTA, a joint unit reporting to the Treasury and Cabinet Office, said its confidence had fallen from last year's amber rating because department-wide recruitment and resourcing constraints had created workforce shortages, while "sub-par supplier performance continues to delay delivery of the first SKYNET 6 satellite." The Register asked the MoD, Babcock, and Airbus to comment. A spokesperson at Airbus told us: "Airbus is proud to be building the Skynet 6A secure military communications satellite for the UK MoD. We are working closely with our MoD partners and making strong progress in delivering this critical sovereign capability. As this is an active, classified MoD programme, it is not our place to comment on internal departmental metrics or historic NISTA assessments." In 2022, the MoD told Parliament that the estimated cost of all elements of Skynet 6 over its 26-year lifecycle had risen from £7.1 billion to about £8.35 billion. Changes in technology and functionality, the need to address emerging risks, and rising space-sector prices all contributed to the increase, it said. ®

Lockheed Martin unveiled MORFIUS X-Rotor at the Farnborough International Airshow, an airborne counter-drone system built around a high-power microwave weapon that the company says can neutralize an entire swarm of hostile drones in a single mission, then land, get recovered, and fly again. A high-power microwave weapon, commonly shortened to HPM, works by blasting a […]

Intel’s Itanium architecture was an interesting experiment, but it has gone down in history as one of the chip giant’s bigger flops, so much so that it earned the name “Itanic” in the tech press. This is perhaps unfair, considering it did limp on until a quiet EOL in 2020. We didn’t know anyone missed it, but perhaps it was more the technical challenge than nostalgia for obsolete server hardware that led [Yufeng Gao] and [gdwnldsKSC] to spin up an instruction-set translator for the late, lamented, IA-64 architecture.

Note that it’s very much in alpha, version 0.1, so don’t expect all the things. Neither HP-UX and OpenVMS will boot, which is a pity since Itanium’s great success was arguably winning those OSes and thereby killing the bespoke architectures HP and DEC had at the time. Gentoo can get to a shell, as long as you use Kernel 6.6 or older, and Windows Server 2003 and XP-64 both apparently boot.

It’s not incredibly performant, with 486-level speeds when running on Ryzen 5000 series hardware, but then, it is a 64-bit hardware being emulated here, and pretty weird hardware at that. Itanium’s Very Long Word Instruction architecture was notoriously hard to program well. Specifically, it was hard to compile optimized programs for, so we expect optimizing an emulator is going to be similarly difficult. That’s why this is so impressive, even at this early stage.

The late, unlamented Itanium is probably one of the few systems not in the Virtual OS Museum, but perhaps eventually this project will change that.

via Raymii.org

NVIDIA has introduced Synthetic Video Detector, an AI tool that detects AI-generated videos with up to 92% accuracy in milliseconds.

Discover how federal agencies are applying AI to strengthen cybersecurity, improve operational efficiency and deliver measurable mission outcomes while balancing innovation, governance and human expertise.

© Getty Images/iStockphoto/monsitj

Andy Burnham is barely through the door at No. 10, and one of Keir Starmer's flagship tech projects is already heading for the shredder, with the incoming prime minister set to scrap the UK's digital ID scheme while creating a Cabinet-level minister for artificial intelligence. The move, reported by Reuters, kills off a policy Starmer spent the past year championing. His government pitched digital identity as a way to crack down on illegal working, held closed-door meetings on how to build it, and fought off privacy campaigners. "One of the first things this government will do is put its focus where people need it right now: creating breathing space and delivering change they can feel in their everyday lives," a Burnham spokesperson said. "That means all the time and resource that was going to be spent on a national ID scheme will go instead to where it's most needed, such as helping with the cost of living." Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell echoed that message on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, saying the savings were "not an insignificant amount" but arguing the bigger benefit was freeing up the machinery of government to focus elsewhere. Quite how much money that actually means remains unclear. In November 2025, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated [PDF] its cost at about £1.8 billion between 2026-27 and 2028-29, although the government repeatedly ducked questions on that point, leaving Parliament and the public to speculate about the eventual bill. The initial proposal looked rather more ambitious than the version Burnham is now consigning to history. Starmer's original "Brit Card" plan called for a compulsory digital credential containing a worker's name, nationality, date of birth, residency status, and photograph, which ministers said would make it harder for people without the right to work to find employment. Privacy campaigners immediately piled in, with the Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and others warning that Britain was drifting toward a national identity system by another name, raising concerns over surveillance, data collection, and mission creep. The criticism forced a rethink. In October 2025, ministers dropped the compulsory element, saying the scheme would be voluntary and that existing documents, such as passports, could continue to be used to verify identity. Burnham appears to have concluded that even the watered-down version wasn't worth saving. Digital identity may be headed for the bin, but AI is getting promoted. According to plans reported by The Sunday Times, Burnham will elevate a minister for artificial intelligence to Cabinet rank for the first time. The role is expected to focus on driving AI adoption across government while supporting Britain's AI industry, with details of the minister's departmental home due next week. "I want Britain to be one of the great technology countries of the world," a Burnham spokesperson told the newspaper. "Building the companies, the jobs and the industries that come with that. That's exactly why the minister for AI belongs in Cabinet." The message from the new government seems clear enough: don't expect a Brit Card in your wallet any time soon, but do expect AI to turn up in just about every Cabinet meeting. ®

X-Bow Systems unveiled Buckler, a flight-tested interceptor built to shoot down Group 3 drones at supersonic speeds, with the company pricing the weapon below $100,000 per unit, a fraction of what traditional air defense missiles cost to defeat the exact same kind of threat. Group 3 drones sit in the middle of the military’s five-tier […]

The UK government has admitted that two major planks of its multibillion-pound shared services strategy are in serious trouble. Matrix, a project that involves moving nine government departments to shared ERP and HR systems, has been rated red by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), which monitors the planning and delivery of major government projects. This rating means the project has "major issues" with its schedule, budget, quality, or delivery of benefits, and the problems "do not appear to be manageable or resolvable" at this stage. Matrix is just one of five clusters the government is betting will save £4.3 billion by migrating a total of 17 departments and 300 arms'-length bodies onto shared tech platforms. The NISTA report for fiscal 2025-26 says the rating reflects "a number of material issues" identified during project planning. In 2024, Matrix awarded Workday a contract for SaaS finance and HR software and Cognizant a system integration deal with a combined value of £144.3 million. Matrix was scheduled to begin going live in May 2026, but experienced delays. In March, the Matrix Programme Board met "to consider the case for re-baselining the programme, including the development of a rectification plan and the consideration of several planning scenarios." "Replanning is intended to establish a more realistic, credible, and achievable forward plan in response to ongoing delivery challenges. Current emerging analysis indicates a delay of 3-6 months, which would move the Phase 1 user go‑live to late 2026," the NISTA report says. Although "system issues have now been resolved," the "single biggest risk to this is departments being unable to find functional subject matter expert capacity to undertake the high level of testing they have identified as being required, given their low risk appetite." The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is leading Matrix. It is joined by the Cabinet Office, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Business and Trade, Attorney General's Office, and the Department of Health and Social Care. His Majesty's Treasury (HMT) and the Department for Education have delayed their decisions to join Matrix despite the Cabinet Office saying they had "unconditionally bought into joining shared services at the outset" and their "participation in shared services is not optional." MPs said last week that their reluctance to join could undermine the project. The Treasury, for example, already uses relatively modern Oracle Fusion SaaS to run its HR and finance functions. NISTA also rated the Unity shared services project as red, although it said progress had improved. Unity concerns His Majesty's Revenue & Customs – Britain's tax collection agency – and two other departments moving to a cloud-based SAP ERP system. A spokesperson at DSIT told The Register: "Delivery challenges were found in the Matrix Program after a planned review. We have decided to replan the program to make sure we have a realistic and achievable delivery schedule, while continuing work to modernize shared services across government." Officials said the department's program team is developing the next iteration of the business case for HMT and Cabinet Office approval later this year. It is due to set out a timetable for the next wave of departments and arm's-length bodies to onboard to the new system and service, including HMT. DSIT remains committed to the program and expects it to offer £1.67 in benefits for every £1 invested. ®

UK government auditors are calling for officials to consider the impact of AI on the size of the workforce needed for the civil service and wider public sector. The National Audit Office (NAO) recommends civil service leaders to "reflect the impact of major technological change in their long-term workforce planning," including on "workforce size, roles and grades, tasks and skills." These are among the workforce changes on which senior management should focus "to realize productivity benefits from AI and digital transformation." "The major challenge for the government is reflecting the fundamental impact of AI and digital change in planning for how organisations will operate in future. This includes expected implications on staff numbers, the nature of work, and capabilities required to carry out that work," the recently published report says. The NAO references the government's claim that it can create efficiencies from digital transformation and AI amounting to £45 billion each year. However, as The Register has already reported, others were much more skeptical about the claim, with Nick Davies, program director at the Institute for Government, pointing out it was a "huge amount" given most spending is on salaries or infrastructure. Later, Parliament's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said the figure was "worryingly optimistic," calling it an example of "hype" that could impede progress in digital transformation. The NAO report says "reduced staffing needs and improved productivity" are expected from digital self-service for areas such as tax and benefits, and automating manual tasks such as checking planning applications. However, the report also points out the challenges to workforce changes, not least that the public sector lacks the tech and digital skills needed to reap the slated efficiencies from AI. "The published efficiency plans do not provide details of how departments derived their expected workforce efficiencies. There is a risk that departments are not identifying and estimating workforce efficiencies consistently. There is also a more fundamental risk that departments may not be identifying the full opportunities for efficiencies from reshaping workforces in response to wide-ranging digital and AI adoption," the NAO report says. The report also notes that Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo had already pointed out that current workforce plans for the civil service "do not sufficiently reflect how AI and technology are going to change the shape of the civil service". It stresses that government departments need to prepare their digital and AI plans to sit alongside their strategic workforce plans. The NAO report also warns: "There may be ethical concerns around AI use in some circumstances, resulting in organizations restricting its deployment." ®

The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Command, Control, Communications, and Battle Management Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio published a market research notice this week seeking industry information on a new ground-based launcher built to shoot down both cruise missiles and drones ranging from small commercial-style quadcopters up to large, fixed-wing […]