July 20 Tech news roundup: Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage affected thousands of PCs, Intel CPUs have a big problem, Kaspersky exits the U.S.

Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage causes computers to fail across the world

Thousands of Windows computers experienced a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error on Friday. The result left thousands of computers across the world. Several offices were affected by the issue, and many hospitals, banks, airlines, TV Stations were left without service. Users were quick to blame Microsoft, but the cause of the global outage was not Windows or a cyberattack.

The failures were related to a third-party software called CrowdStrike Falcon. It is a security software, more precisely it is an endpoint detection and response software, that is installed on workstations to monitor them, detect malware and neutralize threats. George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, released a statement to say that the outage was a result of a faulty driver update that was released by the company. Sky News, Melbourne Airport, Ryanair, Delta, United, and American Airlines also released statements apologizing for the disruption of services. Linux and Mac devices were not affected by the outage.

Windows 11’s Photos app is getting AI editing features

Microsoft is bringing artificial intelligence to another app, but it is not using Copilot. The Windows 11 Photos app is getting an AI editor which uses Microsoft Designer. The default image viewer on Windows 11, will soon allow you to enhance your images using simple tools, directly within the app, instead of opening Designer in your web browser. Users can edit pictures with various options such as generative erase, background blur, auto crop images, etc. Designer in the Photos app has additional options to adjust the image, apply filters, add text or markup. Signing in to your Microsoft account will allow you to save your edits to the cloud. The Designer AI features are currently available for users in the Windows Insider Program.

Microsoft Designer is also available as a standalone app for Windows 11 PCs, Android and iOS devices.

Google Chrome’s Safe Browsing will display full screen security warnings

Google Chrome is making some changes to how Safe Browsing works. The feature is designed to protect computers from malware, warns users when a file that they download could potentially be malicious. When the browser detects a suspicious file, it blocks the download, though you can click on it on the downloads page, and then you get an option to download the file.

An upcoming change to Safe Browsing will make Chrome display a warning message in the download list, it places a message that says “dangerous download blocked”. Interacting with the download will show a pop-up that states “this file is dangerous”. The option to download the file is not available in this pop-up, but you can use the Downloads page to proceed to the next step. Selecting the “download dangerous file” option will result in a full-screen security warning with a red background. It has a button that says “Continue anyway”, when you select it, Chrome will display with three reasons that you can choose from to download the file. The first one says “I created this file”, while the second option states “I trust the site”, and the last option says “I’m willing to accept the risk”. Pick a reason, and it will activate the download button.

Experts claim that Intel CPUs are defective

Users with Intel CPUs have been reporting stability errors on Raptor Lake K/KF/KS models. A large number of these reports appear to be related to the Intel 13900k and 14900k. The issues came to light when a game developer, Alderon Games, published a report on their website. The company’s CEO explained that several players of the studio’s game, Path of Titans, had reported experiencing crashes, instability, running out of VRAM, and memory corruption errors. Further analysis and benchmark tests narrowed down the issue to the Intel 13th and 14 Gen CPUs. The developer stated that even game servers running on those CPU models had crashed, and that they had to switch to AMD CPUs to fix the problem.

Intel previously released an update for its Microcode and BIOS, but the company has confirmed that it was not a solution for the stability problems. Instead, the update was meant to patch an issue related to eTVB (enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost). The company had recommended users to run their PCs at their stock setting without overclocking the chips. But, according to Level1Tech’s Wendell Wilson, the Intel CPUs seems to have a high failure rate. Based on some technical analysis at data centers, 50% of the Intel CPUs ran into critical issues during a 1-week period. The tests indicate that the stability issues could be a hardware defect, and as such it cannot be fixed by updates.

Google is ending support for goo.gl URL shortener

Google is killing yet another of its services. This time it is the popular goo.gl URL shortener that is getting the axe. The search giant had launched the link shortening service in 2010, to help people paste cleaner links that are easier to share. Users who visit a goo.gl link will be taken to an interstitial page that says “This link will no longer work in the future”. However, the interstitial pages could cause problems if 302 redirects are used by websites.

Goo.gl shortcuts will stop working from August 25th, 2025. This change could affect millions of links that users have shared across websites.

Kaspersky to exit the U.S.

Kaspersky has announced that it is shutting down its U.S. division. The news comes in the wake of the recent ban by the United States Government, which forbids the company to sell its security software in the Country, because of potential links to Russian intelligence agencies. It also affects the availability of downloads, updates of the antivirus products made by the company after September 29, 2024. This will force users to look for an alternative antivirus for their computers.

The security vendor said that the business operations in the U.S. are not viable due to the ban. The company has confirmed that it has laid off less than 50 employees in the U.S. Kaspersky had originally planned to appeal the ban, but it is unclear if the company would proceed with its plans.