A defense startup has raised $7 million to develop its counter-drone system that uses small interceptors to defend against swarms of FPV (First-Person View) drone swarms, the kind causing heavy battlefield casualties in Ukraine. San Francisco-based Mara says it has secured the funding to bring its Spike drone defense system to market, aiming to provide a cost-effective counter to small FPV attack drones - typically quad-copters with an explosive payload. The system comprises separate Spotter sensor / targeting units and multiple Seeker kinetic interceptors. The latter are small (250g / half a pound), fast (200 kmph / 124 mph), tube-launched, and have onboard intelligence to help find their way to the target. Mara claims that deployments can scale from a single rucksack kit to protect a squad of troops, to a vehicle-mounted launcher, up to a multi-kilometer perimeter shield for a base or site. A launcher can be fitted with up to 48 of the Seeker interceptors, and reloaded in less than a minute, or so the firm says. The Spotter detection and tracking sensor combines electro-optical and acoustic sensors with an optional low-signature radar, for day and night all-weather protection. “Small drones changed the battlefield because they distributed the cost and capability of precise attack,” Mara co-founder and CEO Daniel Kofman said in a statement. Yet many defensive countermeasures are concentrated into one costly point solution, he claims. “Spike creates a distributed mesh of small, cheap nodes that can each aim and shoot in multiple directions at once.” The components of its Spike system have already been tested by potential customers, Mara says. Seeker completed intercepts cued through US Army systems at an exercise in Texas, while Spotter has been operated on an armored vehicle during another Army exercise in Europe. Most recently, Ukrainian forces operated Spotter near to the front line in their country, where it tracked multiple FPV drones. Mara says it has research and testing agreements with three US defense organizations, and is in early-stage engagements with international military partners in the UK, Czech Republic and Ukraine. The $7 million funding round was led by Khosla Ventures. We asked Mara for further details, such as the range of its Seeker interceptors and just how inexpensive they are, and will update if we get answers. ®

Microsoft's latest Xbox merchandising deal means at least you can sit on an IKEA cushion while you wait for your PlayStation 5 to boot. IKEA has announced YXSTABY, a nine-piece collection of items aimed at the XBOX completist who has to have every possible piece of merchandise associated with their beloved game console. Need a stool? How about one modeled on a controller's thumbstick? A cushion? There's a D-pad to throw on the sofa. And a tariff refund for Xbox customers? Ah, well, the IKEA deal only goes so far… IKEA has long had a reputation for being that place where relationships go to die, thanks in part to the occasionally labyrinthine layout of its store. Xbox has, under the leadership of Asha Sharma, acquired a similar rep as far as staffers and game studios are concerned. Thousands of workers were laid off in recent months as Sharma "reset the business" to improve the platform's standing in a market dominated by rivals. In the UK, IKEA charges £12 for a cushion or platter, and up to £115 for a side table on wheels. The Reg suspects Xbox branded stuff will be a little pricier but considerably less than an Xbox itself. Microsoft Store shows the comparatively weedy Xbox Series S retailing for £429.99, while the beefier Series X goes for £669.99. When launched in 2020, the Series S cost £249. "Unfortunately," wrote Microsoft, "console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027." It is far from alone. Price rises have become a way of life in the tech industry in recent months as demand for memory outstripped supply. This is not the first gaming-related wares that IKEA has sold. The BRÄNNBOLL collection predates the Xbox collaboration and features "everything to improve your gaming adventures, from a rug that helps you hit the enemies, not the table, to gaming bolsters that boost your comfort and play." The YXSTABY range was unveiled at Gamescom this month, but eager buyers have a little longer to wait for that Xbox-inspired stool. The range will be in stores and available online from October 1. ®

For years, Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at Duckbill and occasional Reg columnist, has argued that Amazon's Route 53 DNS service is a database. While literally true in the sense that DNS records are stored key-value pairs, it's more of a provocation than an endorsement. Even so, the idea has inspired prior jibes. In that spirit, Colin Percival, the creator of backup service Tarsnap, has released Route 53 Files, "a new file system that seamlessly connects any AWS compute resource with Amazon's highest-availability database." "The opening line of referring to Route 53 as Amazon's highest-availability database was partly a hat-tip to Corey," Percival told The Register. "Everyone in the field knows it's true, though." But Percival's satirical target isn't really AWS database downtime. He's more focused on Amazon S3 Files, a file system that links AWS compute resources with Amazon Simple Storage Service. "S3 Files launched in April and my reaction was, 'Oh, we're shipping category errors now? Hold my beer,'" explained Percival. "I'm not saying that Route 53 Files can't be useful – as Corey notes, the API for Route 53 is awful – but the inspiration was 'this needs to be satirized' and the launch post was written with that in mind." The launch post was penned in the style of the S3 Files launch post. Percival pointed to one particular passage about Route 53 Files being "ideal for shared workloads that mutate authoritative DNS, such as AI agents collaborating through file-based tools and on-call engineers reverting each other's changes using sed." That passage, he said, echoes wording from the AWS post pitching S3 Files as being "ideal for interactive, shared workloads that mutate data, from agentic AI agents collaborating through file-based tools to ML training pipelines processing datasets." Percival said he understands that many AWS customers love S3 Files. "But the fact customers ask for faster horses doesn't in itself mean that's what we should give them; the weird edge cases which come up when you ship category errors can cause unexpected problems and I'm not convinced that customers understand them sufficiently," he said. Percival said he doesn't personally know anyone using S3 Files in production. "I'm just looking at the design and saying, 'that looks like a sharp edge which will hurt someone.' Two examples which come to mind are the 'Sync back to S3 after 60 seconds of inactivity,' which I'm sure will bite someone eventually when they end up waiting for changes which never arrive because a file is being continuously updated; and the IAM integration, which (due to the security fail which is IMDS) gives people far less privilege separation than they might expect from a filesystem." Quinn expressed appreciation for Percival's work. "I've been calling Route53 a database for the better part of a decade mostly to annoy people who know what a database is," Quinn told The Register. "Colin took the amazing bones of a legendary service and gave it an interface model that isn't molten garbage, and I am totally here for it. He replaced the API with echo which is a downgrade in every respect except for the part where it works without requiring six weeks of cloud school." And the funny thing is that it actually works. ®

Picture this: You’ve just undergone one of the most harrowing experiences of your life, and you’re trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building. You’re injured, air is running out, and human rescuers can’t reach you. But crawling through the rubble to administer life-saving drugs and reassure you comes the last thing you’d expect: a swarm of cyborg cockroaches bearing tiny syringes. Unfortunately for those who’d rather find solace in the arms of a fluffy, drooly St. Bernard, this tale is anything but science fiction. It’s not even a new idea: Cockroaches fitted with electronics that allow rescue workers to control their movements from a distance have been on the research docket for biotech researchers for some time. What’s new in this latest experiment from researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland is outfitting the, erm, little buggers with devices remote rescuers can use to shoot a drug dart into trapped patients. “A lot of people might not like the sight of a giant cockroach scurrying towards them, but if you’re trapped in rubble or stuck in a cave and need help, it could make a real difference between life and death,” PhD candidate and lead research paper author Hai Nhan Le told the University of his phobia-triggering project. Giant is right – the species chosen for the project, the giant burrowing cockroach, is the world’s heaviest roach species, and can grow up to 8 centimeters in length, or around 3.1 inches. Known to be docile, they’re popular pets in their native Australia, and – lucky for anyone coming face to face with one while trapped in a pile of rubble – they’re known to be relatively clean and disease-free, too. The giant burrowing cockroach was chosen for its size, per the paper, as they needed to be large enough to “integrate centimetre-scale apparatuses for … real world scenarios.” The “paraborgs,” as the team calls their subjects, were outfitted with electrodes that gave researchers the ability to make the roaches turn left and right, control their speed, and immobilize them in order to deliver drugs without the roach moving while scientists tried to take aim. Then they were fitted with various add-ons specific to their roles in the paramedic swarm –one built to search, another equipped with a single launchable drug syringe, for example. Outfitting the roaches with their cyborg backpacks isn’t fatal, and the team said that their subjects were able to live just as long as other roaches once their harnesses were removed. *shudder* Well, at least they're good at their jobs The Queensland team had overwhelming success in getting their paraborgs to end up where they wanted them - 100 percent successful, in fact, the paper said. As for drug injection, the auto-injection mechanism succeeded 90 percent of the time, and paraborgs able to get within 15 cm of a target (5.9 inches) were able to successfully inject drugs 95 percent of the time. The only trouble spot for the experiment was getting the robo roaches to sit still, with only a 72 percent success rate in stabilizing the cockroaches for injection targeting. That’s still a pretty good rate of success, leaving the team to predict that swarms of specially-outfitted paraborgs could be swarming over disaster sites in a matter of a few short years. “Some could carry cameras and environmental sensors, while others could carry specialised emergency or medical equipment,” UQ robotics engineering lab director and lecturer Dr. Thang Vo-Doan said of the project. “Hopefully, within the next 5 to 10 years, we could see cyborg insect rescue teams deployed to help people in real emergencies.” Hopefully large bugs bearing medical aid isn’t something that’ll send you into a panic. ®

BORK!BORK!BORK! Wide, super wide, ultra wide, and monitor-munga screens might be all the rage these days. But check out the girth of this Debian display in Scotland. Spotted by eagle-eyed Register reader Kenny Millar, this digital billboard in the west central Lowlands town of Greenock has been showing a Debian login prompt for a few weeks now. We know the Linux fraternity are less than keen on advertisements in their operating system, but this is getting ridiculous. Did you know that Debian had its own tartan? No, we didn't either. Our reader provided a link to a Google Street View shot of the board in happier times, in 2024. However, the base of the sign in 2024 hinted at the fate that has since befallen it. It was a 75Media billboard, something now removed. 75Media, a major outdoor advertising company in the UK, ceased trading at the end of 2025, and we fear that the Greenock signage whoopsie is a real-world example of the lights being on, but nobody's in. Or, in this case, Debian prompting for a login, but no humans to handle the request. So the board waits… It looks like Debian 11 – Bullseye – is the operating system in use. Released in 2021, the operating system reaches the end of long-term support in 2026, although fixes can continue until 2031 (assuming someone is paying the bills). With 75Media out of the picture, responsibility for the board has likely shifted to a different advertising agency. Despite its imposing physical dimensions, the display resolution comes in at just 1,200 x 320 pixels which is plenty for running a couple of Doom sessions side by side, but tight for actual desktop use. It's fitting, then, that the terminal driving the board is left on display. No true IT professional, after all, likes to stray far from the command line. There is something strangely plaintive about this board with its login prompt bared to the world, but with no techie behind the scenes to either put it out of its misery with a sudo shutdown -h or set off the next slideshow of ads to entice passing motorists. A case of perhaps IT is aware, but nobody cares. ®