Missed the week’s big tech news? Here’s your firmware update
If you’re looking to catch up on the week’s biggest tech news then you’re in the right place. We’ve got a handy update for you that’ll break down the most important events from the past week into easy-to-digest chunks.
The standout story came from AT&T after it had a massive cell service outage across the US that lasted for 12 hours and got so bad some affected people couldn’t call 911. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this is one time AT&T probably wishes it wasn’t making headlines.
There was also an AI tool meltdown, Apple launched a new Sports app, the first Borderlands movie trailer dropped, and there’s so much more you need to know. So in case you missed it, here are this week’s seven biggest tech news stories.7. AT&T had an almighty cellphone outage in the US
This week, AT&T unintentionally gave its customers a trip back to the early 90s when a huge outage crippled its cellphone service across several major US cities. The problems started in the early hours of Thursday morning when thousands discovered they had no mobile signal – and the outage ultimately hit over 1.7 million customers.
So what caused it? Was it a solar flare, a cyberattack, or an elaborate Netflix promo for Leave the World Behind? Actually, it was simple user error, according to AT&T. The network said the outage was caused by the “application and execution of an incorrect process” as it expanded its network. So if you’re feeling bad about an IT-related gaffe at work, that should make you feel better at least.
Read more: Here’s what we know about the biggest cellphone outage in recent memory6. ChatGPT had a meltdown, and Google Gemini struggled with accurate art
ChatGPT had yet another blip in its behavior this week – and it might have been the strangest one yet. Users reported the AI chatbot getting stuck in nonsensical loops, spouting incomprehensible Spanish, and even at one point claiming to be ‘in the room’ with the user.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has released a statement telling users not to be concerned, and that the issue has been identified and rectified – but didn’t explain the bot’s bizarre behavior. Speculation is rife among users, with some suspecting that a glitch in the chatbot’s creativity ‘temperature’ resulted in overly imaginative responses to ordinary queries. ChatGPT (including the paid GPT-4 model) now appears to be back to normal, so whatever behind-the-scenes fix OpenAI deployed seems to have worked.
Google Gemini also had some problems this week as users found it struggled to create accurate images of historical figures – particularly white men.
