Verizon’s and PlayStation’s networks were each separately affected by outages

It was a chaotic Monday if you were a Verizon customer or wanted to play PS5 games in the evening. First, Verizon wireless customers reported outages across the U.S. on Monday. Around 9:30 a.m. ET, hundreds of thousands of users reported problems with their cell service on Downdetector. Reports rose to nearly 105,000 as of 11:20 a.m. Problems included the inability to send text messages and the lack of cell service. The problem was concentrated on the East Coast and Midwest. The carrier did not elaborate on what caused the problem. The FCC said it was working to “determine the cause and extent of these service interruptions.”

Hours later, the PlayStation Network experienced serious issues, with players being kicked out of their games and online games crashing worldwide. (Yes, that’s even bigger than the Midwest and East Coast.) Users also couldn’t log in or do online account management on the PS5, PS4, PS Vita, and PS3. The streaming functionality has also been taken offline. Services came back online in the early hours of October. We are also asking Sony about the cause.

– Mat Smith

The big tech stories you may have missed

The company must also submit regular reports.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) fined Cruise, GM’s self-driving vehicle division, $1.5 million. The fine was imposed for omitting key details of an October 2023 accident in which one of the company’s autonomous vehicles struck and carried away a pedestrian in San Francisco. Cruise is fined for initially filing incomplete reports, but it’s even worse. At meetings with the San Francisco mayor’s office, NHTSA, DMV and other officials on Oct. 3, executives first played video of the accident. However, the video stream was “hampered by internet connection issues” which obscured the part where the vehicle was pulling the victim. Executives who knew about the kidnapping, according to the report, also failed to verbally mention this crucial detail.

NHTSA wants Cruise to submit a corrective action plan covering, among other things, the total number of vehicles, miles traveled and whether they were driving without a driver. It also needs to summarize software updates that impact operations and more. Finally, Cruise must also meet quarterly with NHTSA to discuss and review these reports.

Read on.

Samsung’s Auto Blocker is claimed to make its App Store difficult to install.

Epic loves a court battle. The next challenger is Samsung – and Google. (Yes, Epic already sued Google last December, which found that Google had an illegal monopoly on app distribution and in-app billing services.) Epic Games claims that Samsung’s auto-blocking feature makes it difficult for users to to install the Epic Games Store on the latest Samsung devices. This is because Samsung is now enabling Auto Blocker, which by default only allows app installations from the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store. To be honest, it’s quite a hassle to switch off. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney even suggests that Google and Samsung are working together, although he admits there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.

Read on.