OPINION: It’s been another jam packed week in the world of tech so it’s time to run through who came out best (and worst) at the end of it.
If you’d asked us a few weeks (or even days) ago, we would have confidently called Amazon’s Prime Day sale the biggest event of the week.
However, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike inadvertently took a last-minute run for that title by accidentally taking numerous global companies offline on Friday with a security update for Windows devices.
Keep reading to learn who we named our winner and loser this week.
Winner: Nintendo
Our winner this week is Nintendo as the company announced a handy Switch accessory that seemed a long time coming.
It’s been more than seven years since Nintendo launched the original Switch back in 2017. Since then, we’ve been introduced to multiple variations of the console, from the handheld-only Nintendo Switch Lite to the updated Switch OLED.
However, despite all of these console updates, Nintendo never released an accessory that could charge Joy-Con controllers without connecting them to the Switch itself. There is the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Controller Charging Grip but this is designed to keep the battery running as you game rather than simply recharging the Joy-Con controllers.
This is where the new Joy-Con Charging Stand (Two-Way) comes in. Nintendo recently posted the accessory on its X account, stating that it would be available from October 17 in the UK.
The charging stand is sure to be useful for those with multiple pairs of Joy-Cons, especially when preparing for their next Mario Kart tournament or Smash Bros session.
However, with less than a year to go until the Nintendo Switch 2, the accessory does seem a bit late to the game although it could be a means of ensuring compatibility with existing Joy-Cons going forward, particularly if rumours of magnetic Joy-Cons on the Switch 2 come to pass.
Loser: Everyone
Our loser this week is pretty much everyone after an update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike took Microsoft’s Windows operating system down, causing outages across the globe.
This wasn’t a small bug by any means. The update grounded hundreds of flights and took major broadcasters like Sky News off-air. Other major institutions affected by the outage include banks, hospitals and supermarkets.
Even high street bakery Gails was temporarily taken down, according to a report by the BBC.
Crowdstrike President and CEO George Kurtz released a statement on X soon after the outage occurred reassuring users that there was no security breach or cyberattack and that a fix had been deployed. However, the executive soon received flack from followers for the absence of any apology within that tweet.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has stated that it is taking “mitigation action” to address the effects of the global outage.
While Microsoft wasn’t the root cause of the outage, the knowledge that a single update can take down entire industries overnight certainly isn’t going to inspire trust in the company. Likewise, Crowdstrike’s shares have taken a huge hit in the wake of the outage.
However, it seems the real losers this week were the people left frustrated in airports, blocked from accessing their money or unable to make GP appointments due to the knock-on effects of Crowdstrike’s mistake.
