“The Microsoft outage highlights the weaknesses of centralized systems; a single point of failure can lead to a widespread outage,” Zain Cheng, chief technology officer at Web3 development firm Horizen Labs, told.

As Cheng noted, the outage was widespread. On July 18-19, businesses, supermarkets, publishers, airlines and banks were brought to a standstill with 8.5 million systems experiencing a blue screen of death.

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In the aftermath, technical issues have been blamed on everything from CrowdStrike cybersecurity software to a regulatory deal with the European Union. However, the crypto community sees the problem as a more fundamental one: centralization.

“Everyone knows that single points of failure are dangerous, but these incidents are a reminder of the seriousness of these failures, and they only get worse as systems get more complex,” Cheng added. “In contrast, decentralized blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum remained fully operational during the outage, highlighting their resilience.”

“This incident demonstrates the benefits of decentralization; distributed trust and verification processes reduce common errors and increase system stability,” Cheng said.

Melting Trust

Regardless of the narrative and the exact nature of the system flaw, Microsoft and CrowdStrike are deflecting blame elsewhere.

It can be difficult to satisfy the public if their PR efforts fail to change public perception. Even if these companies’ efforts to change public perception fail, Levitt says there’s not much an unhappy public can do. “Ultimately, the CrowdStrike fiasco will lead to some erosion of trust in legacy systems, but there’s not much the average consumer can do — these are services you rely on every day, and there’s often no viable alternative (for now),” Levitt said. Cheng once again compared centralized and decentralized systems in terms of reliability.

“Public trust in centralized services was already steadily eroding, and the CrowdStrike crash only added to the frustrations. Critical services like airlines, banks, and stores were shut down, but DeFi [decentralized finance] continued to operate on decentralized platforms,” Cheng said.

Developers will need to invest significant time and effort into creating decentralized alternatives to existing systems. “As Web3 matures, the reliability and security of decentralized alternatives will become even more important. Individuals and businesses are increasingly looking for reliable and resilient solutions to meet centralized system failures,” Cheng said. “These events will likely increase interest and development in durable, decentralized alternatives, such as those built on blockchain networks,” Levitt said.

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Following the renaming of the Edge browser to “Microsoft Edge: AI Browser” on mobile devices, an update has arrived. Microsoft has announced that it will be adding an “AI Copilot” key to Windows keyboards. This is notable as the first new addition to the standard keyboard since the addition of the “Windows” key in 1994.

The upcoming change was announced by Yusuf Medhi, executive vice president and chief consumer marketing officer, on the Windows Experience Blog. Medhi defined 2024 as the year of the AI PC.

“In this new year, we will make a significant transition to a more personal and intelligent computing future where AI is seamlessly integrated into Windows from the system to the silicon to the hardware. This will not only simplify people’s computing experience, but also expand it, making 2024 the year of the AI PC.”

The new key will “make it seamless to enable Copilot in your daily life.” It is likely that pressing the key when it launches will call Microsoft’s Copilot virtual assistant. Currently, there is no information on whether the full functionality or user interface experience will be customizable.

Prior to the announcement of the Copilot key, it appeared that Microsoft had quietly rebranded the Edge web browser on mobile devices. A quick look at the Android and iOS stores shows that each product has a new “AI Browser” addition to the “Microsoft Edge” name.

Microsoft has made 1 billion dollars investment

Microsoft’s AI-focused transformation began with its $1 billion investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in 2019. Since then, the Redmond company has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI and has promised to integrate AI into every aspect of its products, services, and business going forward.

While the Copilot key announced for the Windows keyboard is expected to be a welcome change for those already using Microsoft’s Copilot AI services, the rebranding of the Edge browser on mobile devices seems to have left a negative impression on some people in the tech industry.

Microsoft has apparently decided to name Edge on Android "Microsoft Edge: AI Browser".

I'm so deeply disappointed at every decision that Microsoft leadership makes around Edge. It's like every time they're presented with two options, they intentionally chose the worse option. pic.twitter.com/vKpVPXMQlj

— tierney cyren (please be nice) (@bitandbang) December 30, 2023

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