Earlier this week, a federal court ruled that Google's lucrative default search engine deal with Apple violates antitrust law. Google plans to appeal the decision and the court hasn't provided insight into how it plans to address Google's monopoly, but there is a chance Google will no longer be able to pay to be the default search engine on Apple devices. Google's Payments to Apple For many years, Google has paid Apple billions to be the primary search engine on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. When you use the Safari browser, Google Search is the default option, and that's because Google pays for the privilege. You can pop into the Settings app and swap to a different search engine like…

Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux machines were not affected even though they received the same software. A report from The Wall Street Journal delves into what happened and includes some critical information from Microsoft on why Macs did not get taken out by the update. On Windows machines, CrowdStrike's Falcon security software is a kernel module, which gives the software full access to a PC. The kernel manages memory,…

While Windows PCs suffer a massive global CrowdStrike IT outage, Macs remain unaffected, CrowdStrike said.
 The debacle, caused by a defective update, halted airlines, hospitals, public transport, and more.
 Jordan Hart for Business Insider: ‎ While Windows users suffered from a global IT outage, Mac owners weren’t affected by the defect responsible. Major airlines, banks, and retailers are experiencing widespread disruptions linked to the outage after Microsoft reported problems with its online services, linked to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Many businesses have been held up by the “blue screen of death” on their Microsoft devices since early Friday morning, but it’s business as usual for Mac users, according to CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz. Support MacDailyNews at no extra…

Microsoft’s Windows BSOD has struck again – worldwide. IT security consultant Troy Hunt called it “the largest IT outage in history,” saying, “basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.” George Kurtz, president and CEO of Crowdstrike, a modern antivirus platform, was quick to take responsibility for the issue, writing on X, “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.” https://x.com/George_Kurtz/status/1814235001745027317 Kevin Purdy for Ars Technica: ‎ Millions of people outside the IT industry are…

See what it took for Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company again, surpassing Microsoft and Nvidia. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

Fearing increased antitrust scrutiny, both Apple and Microsoft are distancing themselves from OpenAI. Microsoft vacated its observer seat on the board, and Apple has now opted not to take up a similar position. Camilla Hodgson and George Hammond for Financial Times: ‎ Microsoft, which has invested $13bn in the maker of the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, said in a letter to OpenAI that its withdrawal from its board role would be “effective immediately”. Apple had also been expected to take an observer role on OpenAI’s board as part of a deal to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone maker’s devices, but would not do so, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. OpenAI would instead host regular meetings…