Tech news of the week: Microsoft global outage, e-commerce sales, and more

What can be considered the biggest IT outage of this year clearly shows what happens when companies depend on one service provider, and how a single line of bad code could turn the world around us upside down. Industries like airlines, banks, ATMs, hospitals, and more were severely impacted, with some airlines even ending up issuing handwritten boarding passes. The IT outage is said to have hurt many businesses, leading to billions of dollars in loss, and disruption of various services.

CrowdStrike admitted that the issue was caused due to a release of a sensor configuration update to Windows systems, which triggered a logic error, resulting in a system crash.

Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.

We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can…

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

Amazon and Flipkart – the two major e-commerce platforms in India are currently running a sale on a range of products. While Amazon’s sale is limited to Prime customers, the Flipkart GOAT sale is open to everyone, offering deals and discounts on smartphones, laptops, accessories, smart TVs, and more.

#AmazonPrimeDay ends tonight! ⏰
Don't miss your last chance to grab great deals on your favourite products.
Shop now before it's too late!#AmazonPrimeDay #DiscoverJoy pic.twitter.com/c4RpfDaAXN

— Amazon India (@amazonIN) July 21, 2024

India mein sab kuch milta hai. Flipkart G.O.A.T Sale pe sabko sab kuch milta hai 🥳🎉
Shop from 20th - 25th July and grab a-mehh-zing deals! 🐐✨💫 pic.twitter.com/oB96PcYA9F

— Flipkart (@Flipkart) July 19, 2024

OpenAI introduced a new language model GPT-4o mini, a cost-effective generative AI model that outperforms GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 Turbo. According to the company, it costs $0.24 per 1 million tokens and also outperforms many of the existing models such as Gemini Flash, and Claude Haiku.

Introducing GPT-4o mini! It’s our most intelligent and affordable small model, available today in the API. GPT-4o mini is significantly smarter and cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo.https://t.co/sqJsFEYHWq pic.twitter.com/g6jMttp1mF

— OpenAI Developers (@OpenAIDevs) July 18, 2024

OnePlus introduced its first metal smartphone with 5G connectivity – OnePlus Nord 4 (review) – along with other products like the Nord Buds 3 Pro, Watch 2R, and the OnePlus Pad 2 at a launch event held in Milan, Italy. The Nord 4 is also the first phone from the company with six years of promised software support along with four major Android OS upgrades.

Thanks for tuning in! We hope you enjoyed the OnePlus Summer Launch Event and won some fun goodies!#NeverSettle pic.twitter.com/tnmjoiGC1j

— OnePlus India (@OnePlus_IN) July 16, 2024