The Register

This article is about the technology news website. For other uses, see Register (disambiguation).

The Register

Screenshot of the home page, July 2021
Type of site	Technology news
Available in	English
Headquarters	London , England
Owner	Situation Publishing
Created by	Mike Magee John Lettice
URL	www.theregister.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional
Launched	1994; 30 years ago (1994)
Current status	Active

The Register is a British technology news website^[1] co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee and John Lettice.^[2] The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "Biting the hand that feeds IT."^{[3][needs update]} The publication's primary focus is information technology news and opinions.

Situation Publishing Ltd is the site's publisher. Drew Cullen is an owner and Linus Birtles is the managing director. Andrew Orlowski was the executive editor before leaving the website in May 2019.^[4]

History

The Register was founded in London as an email newsletter called Chip Connection. In 1998 The Register became a daily online news source. Magee left in 2001 to start competing publications The Inquirer, and later the IT Examiner and TechEye.^[5]

In 2002, The Register expanded to have a presence in London and San Francisco, creating The Register USA at theregus.com through a joint venture with Tom's Hardware.^[6] In 2003, that site moved to theregister.com.^[7] That content was later merged onto theregister.co.uk. The Register carries syndicated content including Simon Travaglia's BOFH stories.^[8]

In 2010 The Register supported the successful launch of the Paper Aircraft Released into Space, a project they announced in 2009 that released a paper plane in the extreme upper atmosphere.^[9]

The Register also ran the websites Register Hardware and Channel Register, which merged into The Register.

Readership and content

In 2011 it was read daily by over 350,000 users according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations,^[10] rising to 468,000 daily and nearly 9.5 million monthly in 2013.^[11] In November 2011 the UK and US each accounted for approximately 42% and 34% of page impressions respectively, with Canada being the next most significant origin of page hits at 3%.^[10] In 2012 the UK and US accounted for approximately 41% and 28% of page impressions respectively, with Canada at 3.61%.^[11]

Channel Register covers computer business and trade news, which includes business press releases. News and articles for computer hardware and consumer electronics are covered by Reg Hardware. Reg Research is an in-depth resource on technologies and how they relate to business.^[12][13]

Their stories are cited by major news sources^[14] and also used for backup information.^[1][15] Stories in other periodicals were based on their exposés.^[16] For instance, InformationWeek ran a story about The Register's story, as used as the source for a New York Times article.^[17]

In September 2018, the Alexa ranking was #7,194.^[18]

National Archives and Records Administration has archived part of the Web site.^[19]

Writers

The Register has an editorial staff of 16 writers and production experts.^[20] Chris Williams is editor-in-chief. Paul Kunert is UK editor, Iain Thomson is US news editor and Simon Sharwood is Asia-Pacific editor. Columnists include Mark Pesce and Rupert Goodwins.

Intel chips flaw investigation

Further information: Intel Atom § Issues, Meltdown (security vulnerability), and Spectre (security vulnerability)

On 6 February 2017, The Register was the first news outlet to accurately trace a recently discovered flaw in Cisco (and other makers) gear to a serious defect on Intel's Atom C2000 series processors.^{[21][non-primary source needed]}

Around 3 January 2018, The Register broke news about Google's long-ongoing investigation into Intel's processor design, which revealed that a serious flaw in the design of their chips would require Microsoft, Apple, and Linux developers to release patches for their operating systems.^[22]

Criticism

On 12 October 2010 Martin Robbins of The Guardian accused The Register of misunderstanding climate science and misrepresenting a paper from the journal Nature in a manner that deliberately minimized the climate impact of human emissions.^[23] The Register published its "amusingly put-out 'response'" the same day.^[24]

References

1. Mitchell, Dan (26 November 2005). "Big Google Becomes Big Target". The New York Times.
2. Grossman, Wendy M. (2 June 2006). "How online journalism got its UK start". Press Gazette. Wilmington Media Ltd. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013.
3. Mellor, Chris (15 October 2015). "Dell-EMC merger could leave Lenovo out in the cold – analysts".
4. "It's Been Fun". The Register. 9 May 2019.
5. Walsh, Bob (2007). Clear blogging : how people blogging are changing the world and how you can join them. Berkeley, California: Apress. ISBN 978-1-4302-0321-6. OCLC 184907857.
6. Cullen, Drew (25 February 2002). "The Register Comes to the US". The Register. Archived from the original on 26 December 2004. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
7. Cullen, Drew (24 February 2003). "theregister.com goes live". The Register. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
8. Adams, Andrew A. (2008). Pandora's Box: Social and Professional Issues of the Information Age. Rachel J. McCrindle. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-06553-2. OCLC 137325218.
9. "Paper plane launched into space captures Earth images". BBC News. 11 November 2010. Archived from the original on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 15 November 2010.
10. "The Register" (PDF). abc.org.uk. Audit Bureau of Circulations Limited. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
11. "The Register" (PDF). abc.org.uk. Audit Bureau of Circulations Limited. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
12. "CES: FTC chairwoman warns how IoT device data can secretly be used against you". Computerworld. 7 January 2015.
13. "Vista: the 'Anti-Linux'?". InformationWeek. 1 May 2006.
14. Streitfeld, David (25 January 2012). "Groupon Promotion Goes Too Far". The New York Times.
15. "See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016 ... "Worst Passwords Of 2015 Reveal Our Stupidity". InformationWeek.^{[permanent dead link]}
16. Hugo Barra: "Android VP Barra Exits For Chinese Smartphone". InformationWeek. Archived from the original on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
17. Maisto, Michelle (25 February 2016). "Apple Preparing Enhanced iPhone Security, NYT Reports". InformationWeek. Retrieved 29 February 2024. InformationWeek ran a story about The Registers story about a New York Times article.
18. "Theregister.co.uk Traffic, Demographics and Competitors". Alexa. Archived from the original on 13 September 2018. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
19. "Networks News and Views for the World". The Register. Archived from the original on 25 December 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2012.
20. "Contact The Register". The Register. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
21. Claburn, Thomas (6 February 2017). "FYI: Intel's Atom C2000 chips are bricking products – and it's not just Cisco hit". The Register. Archived from the original on 24 November 2019.
22. Wakefield, Jane (3 January 2018). "Major flaw in millions of Intel chips". BBC News. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
23. Robbins, Martin (12 October 2010). "One climate paper, two conflicting headlines". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 December 2016.
24. Lewis Page. "Guardian super-blogger flames Reg boffinry desk", in The Register, 12 October 2010.

External links

• Official website
• "Archive of articles about Wikipedia". The Register.