Happy Thursday everyone and welcome to the Free Tech Newsletter!
Paid subscribers, welcome back to another excellent day of tech news. I do the rare thing and write about an outage today, plus set everyone's expectations on Nvidia. And I have theories about Google Gemini's whole "woke" crisis.
Enjoy!
Tom
Big Story
"70,000 AT&T customers are without service across the US | Ars Technica"
"Massive AT&T outage impacts US mobile subscribers"
"AT&T outage: Thousands report issues with US mobile services"
I have a policy against writing about most outages. Outages are usually transient and by the time I wrote about or talk about and publish something about them they're almost always resolved. And the causes of outages are usually pretty boring. So, an outage has to be really interesting or really impactful for me to write about. The Sony PlayStation Network outage back in 2010 is an example. The AWS outage which had a really interesting cause, was another.
Today I'm going to give some attention to the AT&T outage. One, because it's dragging on longer than most outages. Two, because it's affecting important things like 911, and it's pretty widespread. I wish I'd be able to find out what caused it, but I kind of doubt that will happen, given that it's AT&T. However, the wide impact may force them to be a little more transparent than they like to be. We'll see.
First the scope. It's affecting more than 74,000 AT&T customers across the US. You will see reports that it also affected Verizon and T-Mobile customers, but that appears to be a misperception caused by people calling someone with an AT&T number and not getting through. The AT&T side is the only part of that in outage. It also seems to affect carriers that piggy-back on AT&T's network, so-called MVNOs like Cricket Wireless.
It's been noted everywhere in the US, from Charlotte, to Chicago to Los Angeles so it's not regional.
When did it start? Cloudflare noticed a significant drop in data for AT&T at 8:48 UTC Feb. 22. So that's going on 10 hours or so as I write this.
What has AT&T said. Not much at this point. It knows there is a problem and is, "working urgently to restore service." AT&T also advised customers to use WiFi calling, but some folks report that hasn't been working either. It also told the BBC "Our network teams took immediate action and so far, three-quarters of our network has been restored."
What's causing it? Nothing solid yet though CNN's source said it had to do with network peering. That's how different carriers exchange traffic with each other. I usually cover peering when there's a dispute between two internet providers over payment. I don't think that's what is at issue here. It seems to be more of a technical issue in how the calls are handed off.
In the end this will probably pass without much lasting effect. However, if it turns out there is an interesting cause to this there may be more of an effect than I expect. We'll just have to hear what AT&T has to say.
Other Stories
"Google pauses Gemini’s ability to generate AI images of people after diversity errors - The Verge"
This is what happens when you try to juice your results to please some people. Gemini's image generation was showing black and Asian people when asked to generate images of historical figures in US leadership in the 1700s and 1800s. The historical fact is that those people were almost entirely white English men. Showing an Italian in those images would be questionable, showing black and Asian people is inaccurate and as some people have pointed out, could be seen as implying there was no racial discrimination back then.
This is most likely result of the fact that left to its own devices, Large Language Models reflect the biases of the data they're trained on, and therefore the biases of humans. People in general have criticized the reflection of those biases as furthering and reinforcing the biases and pushing companies to correct for them. But once you start altering results to correct for biases, you're going to introduce more uncertainties, and that's what we're seeing here. Maybe these Lams will narrow in on the right filters to please the sentiments of the public, but it's not going to be easy. Especially since LLMs are unpredictable at best and public moods shift. Expect more issues like this.
"Nvidia (NVDA) earnings report Q4 2024"
"(NVDA) Nvidia Tops Meta Record With Over $230 Billion Jump in Value - Bloomberg"
"What Bubble? Nvidia Profits Are Rising Even More Than Its Stock (NVDA) - Bloomberg"
Nvidia killed it this past quarter with revenue up 256%. Rose Wall Street expectations weren't rosy enough as Nvidia beat them. For example, analysts expected earnings of a beefy $4.64 per share. Nvidia returned $5.16 per share. And it expects revenue to rise again this coming quarter from $22.1 billion to $24 billion.
As a result, Nvidia beat Meta's record for a one day stock jump, launching 14% for a $230 billion rise in value. And yet the stock is still technically undervalued as its profits have been rising faster than its stock price. This is not a recommendation for any investing tactic, mind you, it's just a different story than say, Meta, which for years had a stock price well above its actual earnings, on the faith that those earnings would catch up, which they did. Nvidia is a solid profitable company that is growing, not a darling startup.
"Sony is now testing PSVR 2 support for PC - The Verge"
Sony says it has been testing the ability to use the PlayStationVR 2 headset with a PC. Sony says it wants to let owners "access additional game son PC" so this might not mean you can play any VR game from Steam. That's a clear sign that Sony is not happy with the number of units it's selling and wants to make the product more attractive to PS5 owners. But it doesn't mean it plans to market the PSVR2 to everyone. It's still for PlayStation users.
Quick Takes
"PlayStation now supports passkey sign-ins"
The passkey revolution marches on. You can sign in on a PlayStation using your phone or PC. Just unlock your device and you'll unlock your PlayStation account.
"Xbox's Biggest Surprise Hit Of 2023 Is Coming To Switch 2: Report"
"Hi-Fi RUSH comes to PlayStation 5 on March 19"
Bethesda announced that Hi-Fi Rush is coming to the PS5 on March 19. Not the Nintendo Switch. Insider Gaming's sources say Hi-Fi Rush will come to the next Switch whenever that comes, which is now rumored to be after the first of the year.
"Samsung Galaxy S23 phones will get Galaxy AI in late March - The Verge"
Also, Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5, Galaxy Tab S9, S9 Plus, and S9 Ultra.
"Google’s ‘Help me write’ tool can now finish your sentences in Chrome - The Verge"
US users of Chrome on Mac or Windows can get writing assistance. You need to enable Chrome’s Experimental AI to use the feature.
"Nuro gets a leg up from Arm in launching its third-generation delivery robot - The Verge"
Euro doesn't make big splashes for some reason but has steadily been advancing actual autonomous vehicle use in practical situations like grocery delivery for years.
Interesting Reads
"Meet the Super DVD: Scientists Develop Massive 1 Petabit Optical Disk"
"Nvidia’s finally replacing GeForce Experience with this all-in-one ‘Nvidia app’ - The Verge"
"TikTok launches its ‘Add to Music app’ feature available in over 160 countries | TechCrunch"
"GPay app and P2P payments will stop working in the US this June"
"Google plans to begin Pixel phone production in India in Q2 - Nikkei Asia"
"Meta believes it is not required to pay for Indonesia news content posted voluntarily | Reuters"
"How many news websites block AI crawlers? | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism"
"California puts Waymo robotaxi expansion application on hold until June 19 | Reuters"
"Google to start making Pixel phones in India by next quarter: Nikkei"
"Meta’s Oversight Board will now hear appeals from Threads users, too"
"Watch this robot as it learns to stitch up wounds | MIT Technology Review"
"Sora, OpenAI’s video tool, generates a vivid and misleading world - Vox"
Thanks for covering that AT&T outage story, I was watching that break this morning on twitter and 100% thought it was affecting T-Mobile and Verizon. I was looking forward to see what you had to say about it, thanks for the clarification.