Brandon Vigliarolo

Earth, Nashville

US Government Technology Reporter at The Register

US gov’t technology reporter at The Register. Keeping this account open so I can snoop on the crazy, but if you want to talk hit me up on Bluesky (at)bvig

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Articles

Brain activity lower when using AI chatbots: MIT research

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

Using AI chatbots actually reduces activity in the brain versus accomplishing the same tasks unaided, and may lead to poorer fact retention, according to a new preprint study out of MIT. Seeking to understand how the use of LLM chatbots affects the brain, a team led by MIT Media Lab research scientist Dr. Nataliya Kosmyna hooked up a group of Boston-area college students to electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets and gave them 20 minutes to write a short essay.
DoD university overhead cap paused by judge

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

A federal judge has temporarily blocked an attempt by the Department of Defense to cut funding for university research programs, perhaps inadvertently saving the DoD from an own-goal. Since World War II, the DoD has made significant awards to university research projects in a wide variety of subject areas.
Dems hyperventilate about Palantir's work with IRS in letter

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

A coalition of House and Senate Democrats has sent an aggressive letter to Palantir CEO Alex Karp questioning whether the controversial data intelligence biz is breaking federal law by allegedly helping the IRS build a searchable "mega database" of taxpayer information, and, likening his firm to US companies accused of aiding human rights violations in apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the People's Republic of China.
Trump-branded MVNO and gold-colored phone launches

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

The Trump family is getting into the wireless business - and what better way to do it than with a gold-colored Android smartphone that could someday be designed and manufactured in the USA?
Penn State research team builds 2D CMOS system

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

Gaze into the temporal distance and you might spot the end of the age of silicon looming somewhere out there, as a research team at Penn State University claims to have built the first working CMOS computer entirely from two-dimensional materials.
CVE audit demanded by Dems as program funding threatened

1 week ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

Infosec In Brief A pair of Congressional Democrats have demanded a review of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program amid uncertainties about continued US government funding for the scheme.
AST gets 45 MHz of new D2C bandwidth to battle Starlink

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

A messy legal fight between Ligado and Inmarsat over direct-to-cellular (D2C) spectrum has been settled, giving upstart AST a chance to gain ground on Starlink. AST SpaceMobile has only five satellites in orbit, but nonetheless has partnerships with AT&T and Verizon to provide D2C satellite services. Now, it's clear to acquire 45 MHz of spectrum from bankrupt provider Ligado (40 MHz of L-Band MSS and an additional 5 MHz in the 1670-1675 MHz band), letting it beef up its portfolio.
UK fusion reactor dream gets another £2.5 billion from gov't

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

The UK government has just allocated another £2.5 billion to an ambitious fusion energy project without any indication it's progressed much beyond the planning stages. The bundle of cash ($3.4bn) will go towards the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) project planned for construction at West Burton in Nottinghamshire, the government announced Thursday. Tokamaks heat gases until they become plasma, then use powerful magnets to confine that super-hot soup.
Pentagon IT projects have lots of things to to fix, says GAO

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

US government auditors have been trying to whip the Pentagon's IT programs into shape for half a decade, and the latest report suggests it continues to be an uphill battle. The 2025 IT Systems Annual Assessment, published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) Thursday, concluded that the Department of Defense's major IT business programs plan to suck up $10.9 billion of the agency's budget, but are still missing the mark in a number of ways.
Amazon, Talen Energy sidestep regulators with new power deal

2 weeks ago | theregister.com | Brandon Vigliarolo

Amazon has amended its deal with Talen Energy to buy power for a Pennsylvania datacenter from an adjacent nuclear power plant after regulators raised their eyebrows at the original deal. Talen, operator of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant, announced on Wednesday that it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon supplying its datacenters adjacent to Susquehanna with 1,920 MW of nuclear power through 2042.