What we know about CrowdStrike’s update fail that’s causing global outages and travel chaos
A faulty software update issued by security giant CrowdStrike has resulted in a massive overnight outage that’s affected Windows computers around the world, disrupting businesses, airports, train stations, banks, broadcasters and the healthcare sector. CrowdStrike said the outage was not caused by a cyberattack, but was the result of a “defect” in a software update for its flagship security product, Falcon Sensor. The defect caused any Windows computers that Falcon is installed on to crash without fully loading. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” said CrowdStrike in a statement on Friday. Some businesses and…
Apple finally supports RCS in iOS 18 update
Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. This week, Apple finally added support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) to Messages as part of the second developer beta of iOS 18. Until now, iPhone users could only send SMS or MMS messages from the Messages app to people who didn’t have an Apple device. Now you can share high-quality images and get read receipts and typing indicators while messaging with Android users — but text bubbles are still green. OpenAI is delaying the…
This Week in AI: Companies are growing skeptical of AI’s ROI
Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. This week in AI, Gartner released a report suggesting that around a third of generative AI projects in the enterprise will be abandoned after the proof-of-concept phase by year-end 2025. The reasons are many — poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating infrastructure costs and so on. But one of the biggest barriers to generative AI adoption is the unclear business value, per the report. Embracing generative AI organization-wide comes with significant costs, ranging from $5 million to a whopping $20 million, estimates Gartner. A simple coding assistant has an upfront cost…
Alternative app store AltStore PAL adds third-party iOS apps in wake of EU Apple ruling
AltStore, an alternative app store, has launched its first batch of third-party iOS apps in the European Union. The rollout comes a few months after the company launched an updated version of its app marketplace in the EU. AltStore PAL arrived as a response to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is forcing Apple to open up to new rivals. The initial batch includes torrenting app iTorrent, which allows users to download P2P (peer-to-peer) files, along with a qBittorrent remote client for iOS devices called qBitControl. The list also includes social discovery platform PeopleDrop, which is designed to help people…