What Went Wrong This Year?

In the fast-paced world of innovation, every breakthrough carries the risk of mistakes, miscalculations, or underdelivering on promises.

The biggest tech story of 2024 — the CrowdStrike outage that affected businesses and consumers nationwide — was also one of the year’s most high-profile failures. But the story of CrowdStrike isn’t just a story of failure, it’s also a testament to resilience and recovery.

TechRepublic rounds up the biggest tech flops of the year and explores how they were solved — or left unsolved.

LOOK: These are the hottest Cybersecurity news coverage 2024.

CrowdStrike vulnerability sends travelers into massive blue screen of death

On the morning of Friday, July 19, the CrowdStrike cloud security platform released a content configuration update for Windows. A bug in the content validator used in the update caused a series of errors that spread among CrowdStrike’s customers. This customer base includes approx. 8.5 million Windows devices In businesses, airports and emergency services.

CrowdStrike finally solved the problem 78 minutes After the update. However, the affected machines required a manual reboot, which created ample workload for their team over the weekend.

Communication networks and personal data suffered major data breaches

Two major data breaches have reminded cybersecurity professionals to remain vigilant. In August, UK National Public Data – a consumer background check service – suffered violation Uncovered Social Security numbers from 2.7 billion records. The breach sparked discussion about the legal protection of personal data.

In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of China-linked threat actors had gained access to U.S. broadband networks, specifically through Cisco routers. Both American and international Cyber ​​security agencies have issued warnings against a threat group called “Salt Typhoon”.

Google’s artificial intelligence overview faces ‘difficult’ rollout

Google launched AI-driven answers to search this year, with varying degrees of success. May, AI response Be as popular as Google Seems recommended “Eat at least one pebble a day” and confidently repeat political conspiracy theories. Comments about the rock came from a satirical website, and conspiracy theories came from Reddit. In response, Google restricted user generated content In an overview of artificial intelligence, we work on detecting “meaningless queries”.

This situation highlights the limitations of how to do this generative artificial intelligence Obtain information from the Internet.

Microsoft recalls cloud over privacy concerns

2024 is artificial intelligence computer yearmany different tech companies are racing to determine which artificial intelligence capabilities will gain the most traction.

Microsoft is betting on the appeal of using artificial intelligence to control computers or search for files using natural language. Its recall feature promises to intuitively answer questions like “Where did I put my Saturday restaurant confirmation email?” However, this convenience comes at a price: Think back to capturing screenshots of active windows every few seconds and saving them as a timeline, raising concerns about privacy and data usage.

Microsoft Delay Recalling public appearances. Available for recall as of December 6 Previewing For Windows Insiders.

The rise and fall of wearable artificial intelligence

This year there are two novel artificial intelligence products experimenting with form factors.

this Humanized pin Designed as an artificial intelligence assistant that clips onto clothing, the manufacturer Rabbit R1 Position it as a smartphone replacement. Generally received pins negative comments and a fraction of expected sales. Rabbit R1 followed similar paths. These devices are smart because generative artificial intelligence can open up new possibilities in form factors.

Humane and Rabbit devices are still on sale. But wide use The development of these form factors, including smart glasses, has been a difficult road even for the tech giants. Ultimately, AI-first wearables will hit a dead end in 2024.

Intel had a rough year

Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors experiencing widespread instability and crash issues Year. Intel found a bug microcode algorithm This caused problems this summer. They eventually released a patch. Intel’s stock and market share have declined as rivals NVIDIA and AMD capitalize on the generative AI boom. Intel may recover if CPU sales improve next year, but for now, they’re missing out on the AI ​​hardware boom despite having a solid product portfolio.

The foundation of Tesla’s self-driving products is not solid

Tesla’s ambitious self-driving mode faces several setbacks since massive recall last yearincluding the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is investigating the automaker four specific incidents. Another survey compared self-driving modes to Dozens of people died. Tesla’s fourth-quarter vehicle safety report points out that Autopilot has fewer accidents Emissions per million miles are higher than the average for U.S. cars.

Meanwhile, further reports indicate that many humanoid Tesla robots is operated by humans. Tesla doubled down on its efforts, releasing a video of its Optimus Prime robot operating “alone” at the factory.

Electric vehicle sales decline in 2024 Other automakers have matured In the “green” market, although Tesla is still a strong competitor.