Not just Microsoft: software failures are everywhere

MICROSOFT may have erred with Ctrl+Alt+Del but there are many more technology errors with even bigger repercussions.

The Mars Climate Orbiter went into orbit around the Mars. Pic AP

THE world’s most popular three-key combination was revealed as a mistake last week; the result of a miscommunication between creator and programmer.

But this mistake, admitted by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, is hardly the only one to afflict those at the end of the technology manufacturing line.

Below are five technology fails that need never have existed, and some that have had an even bigger impact.

1. HACK AND SLASH

Ever wondered why there are two forward slashes before every web address? The man credited with creating the worldwide web, Tim Berners-Lee, wonders the same thing.

In 2006, he admitted that if he could have done anything differently, he would have “skipped on the double slash — there’s no need for it”.

In 2009 he further mused to The New York Times, “think of the amount of print now that would have been saved if I had just removed the double slash, but there you go. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

2. ROADS TO NOWHERE

Apple and Google are now rivals, in most fields, so it made sense for Apple to make its own maps and stop relying on its competitor. What didn’t make sense were some elements shown in Apple’s Maps app upon its 2012 release.

Some streets appeared melted, towns like Mildura were relocated, an entire city was classified as a hospital, the Sydney Apple Store mysteriously moved, and navigation directions didn’t fare much better.

While many of the bugs have now been fixed, the Maps app continues to misdirect users. The most recent issue saw an Alaskan airport close its access road after several iPhone navigators tried to drive across an active runway.

Apple map on IOS 6 showing incorrect position of Victorian town of Mildura.

3. MILLENNIUM BUG

Remember Y2K? Those three letters represented a worldwide problem also known as the Millennium Bug that was created by a simple, and perhaps lazy, computer programming shortcut.

Rather than representing a year with four numbers, some computer programmers used only two digits. Clicking over from the year 1999, or 99, to the year 2000, or 00, therefore risked computers and programs thinking we’d regressed at least 99 years.

Worldwide worries that planes would fall from the sky, bank accounts would vanish and files disappear weren’t all justified, thankfully, but a lot of programmers earned a lot of extra work in 1999.

4. MISSED BY THAT MUCH

Bill Gates shouldn’t worry. Ctrl+Alt+Del has nothing on the simple mistake that caused NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter to break into pieces.

The $US327 million creation was a 338g space probe launched in December 1998 and designed to investigate the Martian surface and atmosphere. One small but important software error made it miss its final destination.

While the orbiter’s thrusters were programmed using the metric system, software used on the ground used imperial measurements. It is a problem now known as the “metric mix-up”.

The Mars Climate Orbiter went into orbit around the Mars. Pic AP

5. CDS THAT LISTEN TO YOU

Napster made a lot of record companies very nervous in the early noughties. The web service was letting computer users download songs for free and millions were taking up its generous offer.

Sony BMG didn’t like this trend. To stop it, the company devised a plan to track the use of its own CDs. It created copyright protection software in the form of a rootkit and secretly added the software to CDs from 2005.

The rootkit was discovered in October by researcher Mark Russinovich and later by virus writers, who used the Sony software to break into computer systems and steal information.

Sony was forced to apologise for its actions, recall the discs and front court many times over the issue.

###