Microsoft 365 Down for Thousands of Users, Downdetector Shows

General view of Microsoft Corporation headquarters at Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris, France, April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo
General view of Microsoft Corporation headquarters at Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris, France, April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo
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Microsoft 365 Down for Thousands of Users, Downdetector Shows

General view of Microsoft Corporation headquarters at Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris, France, April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo
General view of Microsoft Corporation headquarters at Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris, France, April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

Microsoft's (MSFT.O), suite of productivity software was down for more than 16,000 users on Thursday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

This comes nearly two months after a faulty software update from cybersecurity services provider CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), affected nearly 8.5 million Windows devices, crippling operations across industries ranging from airlines and banks to healthcare, according to Reuters.

"We're investigating an issue where users may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services," the Windows parent said in a post on X.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to queries on the nature and cause of the outage and when it expects a recovery, but its Azure cloud platform said on X it was probing customer reports of a potential issue connecting Microsoft's services from AT&T (T.N), networks.

The telecom operator did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After the incident reports peaked at around 23,000 for Microsoft 365, there were signs of the issues ebbing. Some users on social media said Microsoft's services were up and running.

About 4,000 users reported issues with AT&T services and more than 16,500 said they had trouble accessing Microsoft's 365 products, as of 9:12 A.M. ET, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform.



Adobe to Launch Generative AI Video Creation Tool Later this Year

Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
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Adobe to Launch Generative AI Video Creation Tool Later this Year

Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)

Adobe will unveil a new generative AI-powered video creation and editing tool in a limited release later this year, the software maker said on Wednesday, as it looks to beef up its suite of applications catering to creative professionals.

Dubbed Adobe Firefly Video Model, the artificial intelligence tool will be released in beta and will join the Photoshop maker's existing line of Firefly image-generating applications that allow users to produce still images, designs and vector graphics.

The model will establish Adobe in the growing market for AI-based video generation tools, a space already targeted by OpenAI's Sora, Stability AI's Stable Video Diffusion and other AI video apps from smaller startups, Reuters reported.

The tool can generate a five-second clip for a single prompt and can interpret both text and image prompts, said Alexandru Costin, vice president of generative AI at Adobe. Users can also specify the required camera angle, panning, motion and zoom.

"We've invested in making this model reach the level of quality and prompt understanding that videographers expect. We've invested in making sure we really pay attention to the prompt ... respecting guidance from videographers much better than other (AI video) models," Costin told Reuters in an interview.

Adobe said the video model is trained on public domain or licensed content that it has permission to use, and not on any Adobe customer content.

"We only train them on the Adobe Stock database of content that contains 400 million images, illustrations, and videos that are curated to not contain intellectual property, trademarks or recognizable characters," Costin said.

Adobe is also rolling out Generative Extend, a tool that will be available in its Premiere Pro video editing software, which can extend any existing clip by two seconds by generating an appropriate insert to fill gaps in the footage.

First previewed in April, the tool has seen "a huge positive reaction from all of our customers", Costin said.