Talking Tech

Thu Feb 22 2024

Wireless outages, Wyze security breach and an update on Neuralink's brain-chip transplant. Here's the week's latest tech news:

Wireless outages and landlines. Thousands of customers woke up Thursday morning to an SOS symbol at the top of their iPhones and no service due to a nationwide telecommunications outage.

The outages were impacting AT&T customers the most, although services from Verizon, Cricket Wireless and T-Mobile were also affected. It also began to impact essential public services, including people's ability to call emergency responders.

Read more about the wireless outages, what the SOS symbol means on phones and what to know about making calls using Wi-Fi.

Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission is considering an application by AT&T to waive its responsibilities to be what's called "Carrier of Last Resort," meaning the utility has to offer the copper-wire landline service.

The utility said in filings with the commission that the technology for the traditional landlines is old and demand is low.

Camera breach. A recent Wyze security breach may be worse than first anticipated. Wyze users were able to see into the homes of others after an outage that overloaded the company's servers and corrupted user's data, according to the company's press release.

"About 13,000 users received thumbnails from cameras that were not their own," said Dave Crosby, one of the company's co-founders, in a statement.

See more on the outage and data breach.

Brain implant. The recipient of the world's first Neuralink brain-chip transplant is able to control a computer mouse by thinking , the tech startup's founder Elon Musk announced this week. Musk added that Neuralink was trying to get the patient to click the mouse as much as possible, Reuters reported.

See more on Neuralink and the brain implant.

Read on for more of the tech news this week.