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My phone kept nagging me about storage, and every warning came with a button to pay for more. I'd been renting space for my own images for years, and the price only ever moved in one direction. Then I looked at the old desktop gathering dust in my closet and wondered if it could do the job. It could, but I could have done it faster had I known what I know now. Just make sure you have an 8GB flash drive to start with.

Home Assistant really is incredible software. It's come a long way from its origins as a few lines of code that could turn on a smart bulb. There's very little that Home Assistant can't do these days, but there are still one or two things that even Home Assistant can't manage alone.

What's new on Netflix in the U.S. this week? If you're searching for a new movie, look no further than Heartland, a mystery thriller starring Jessica Chastain as a former country music star searching for her missing niece. I'm a gambling man, so I'll bet that Heartland shoots to the top of Netflix's Top 10.

TL;DR: Get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more with a lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus, now $47.99 (reg. $249.99) with code DEAL20.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for Windows: Lifetime License $47.99
$249.99 Save $202   Get Deal

Most people get Word, Excel, and PowerPoint through a Microsoft 365 subscription. If that subscription lapses, the desktop apps drop into a read-only mode until payment resumes. If you’d rather own the apps outright, try a Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus lifetime license, a one-time purchase of the full desktop suite for Windows. You pay $47.99 (reg. $249.99) once with code DEAL20.

Six apps and no subscription

Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Access. Each app installs on your PC and works without a cloud connection, so you can write and edit offline.

Your license is tied to one Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC rather than your Microsoft account. That setup suits offices with controlled IT environments, and there’s no Microsoft 365 subscription to keep active. Your redemption code and download instructions arrive by email right after checkout, so setup can start within minutes.

Pro Plus keeps a fixed feature set instead of adding new tools every month, so the menus you learn this week look the same next year. You still get regular security updates for the supported lifecycle. Built-in security and compliance features also make this edition a good fit for businesses in regulated industries.

Day to day, the interface has a dark mode option, and Pro Plus runs well on modest hardware, including older Windows 10 laptops that still meet the system requirements.

On the downside, this version doesn’t run on a Mac, and the license can’t move to a new PC later. You have seven days after purchase to redeem the code. Once you redeem it, the sale is final, so confirm your PC runs Windows 10 or Windows 11 first.

Own your Office apps instead of renting them.

Get a lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for $47.99 with code DEAL20. Offer ends Nov. 15.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: Cancel your monthly hosting plan and get a Hostdeal Unlimited Plan lifetime subscription for $119.99 (reg. $1,800) with code DEAL20.

Opens in a new window Credit: Light Speed Technologies Hostdeal Unlimited Plan: Lifetime Subscription $119.99
$1,800 Save $1,680.01   Get Deal

Most web hosts price their plans by how many sites you run, so every new project can mean a bigger plan. You can avoid that with a Hostdeal Unlimited Plan lifetime subscription and get unlimited web hosting for as many websites as you want. A one-time $119.99 (reg. $1,800) gets you the plan when you use code DEAL20.

54 domains with no renewal fees

Along with unlimited websites, Hostdeal gives you unlimited NVMe SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth, so a busy week on one site won’t add a bandwidth charge. You also get 54 free lifetime domains with no renewal fees. Those domains use niche extensions like .co.business, .co.technology, and .co.events rather than .com, so they fit side projects better than a main brand name.

Sites are managed through the StartCP control panel, where you can manage domains, email accounts, and databases from a single dashboard. A one-click installer sets up WordPress and more than 400 other web apps. Developers get MySQL databases, FTP access, Git integration, cron jobs, and a choice of PHP versions, with every hosted site able to have up to 5 email accounts.

Each site automatically gets a free SSL certificate and daily off-site backups. Hostdeal also includes DDoS protection, malware scanning, a web application firewall, brute-force protection, and two-factor authentication. You can pick a server location in the U.S., U.K., or Singapore, and those servers run on NVMe SSD storage with HTTP/2, IPv6, a CDN, and edge caching.

You can manage everything from a modern browser on Windows, macOS, or Linux, on desktop or mobile. Hostdeal also sells Standard and Triple plans for fewer sites, but Unlimited is the only tier with no cap on websites. Support is available 24/7, and platform updates come with the plan.

Host every site you build for a one-time fee. Through Nov. 15, a Hostdeal Unlimited Plan lifetime subscription is $119.99 with code DEAL20.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

A smart thermostat is one of the easier ways to add voice control to your heating and cooling, and it doesn't need to cost a lot, either. The Honeywell Home Wi-Fi Smart Color Thermostat is Energy Star certified and works with Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings, and you can grab it now for just $80.

There are plenty of reasons Jensen Huang's resignation is a big deal. Not only does his departure leave Nvidia, the AI chipmaker he co-founded 33 years ago, looking for a new permanent CEO for the first time. It also puts the spotlight on the Huang family, whose ties to the company run well beyond its founder.

To catch you up, Huang stepped down four days after first telling employees he'd been unfaithful to his wife of 41 years, Lori Huang. He made the admission after reports of a relationship with Alice Huang, a businesswoman, who first of all is unrelated to him, and whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for China. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that he'd also had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him. And then on Thursday, hours after resigning, Reuters reported that Huang had an "intimate relationship" with another Nvidia employee, whom the outlet did not name.

To make matters worse (if possible), the Huangs' two children, Madison and Spencer, both work at Nvidia, making this whole scandal a family affair with a far more personal question at the center of it: What would happen to the Nvidia multi-billion dollar fortune if they divorced?

Of course, this analysis doesn't mean the couple is divorcing — Lori hasn’t made any public comment. She and Jensen are deeply connected in business as co-trustees of three trusts that directly held nearly 669 million Nvidia shares in March. A September SEC filing shows those direct holdings at about 608 million shares, with additional stock held through companies their living trust owns. Nvidia says the couple may share voting and investment power over those shares.

Will Lori Huang follow MacKenzie Scott's path?

The size of that stake harkens MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of another tech titan, Jeff Bezos. When a judge finalized Scott's divorce from the Amazon founder, her stake in the company was worth $38.3 billion. That October, Forbes ranked her the third-richest woman in America.

Like Scott, Lori Huang was there long before her husband became a billionaire. By the time Jensen co-founded Nvidia, she already had a career in the chip industry.

Lori and Jensen Huang first met as lab partners in an electrical engineering class at Oregon State University, and when they landed jobs in Silicon Valley, Lori earned more than Jensen, he told The New Yorker in 2023. She left the workforce to raise their two children before he co-founded Nvidia in 1993.

Ms. Huang also runs the Jen-Hsun & Lori Huang Foundation, which reported $9.1 billion in net assets at the end of 2024. The couple gave Oregon State $50 million to help build a research center that bears both their names, and the foundation has also bought time on graphics processors and donated it to universities and nonprofits for research.

As of Thursday, Nov. 12, Forbes estimates Jensen's net worth at about $145 billion, making him, according to its list, the thirteenth-richest man in the world. Half of that amount would be roughly $72.5 billion, enough to rank fourth on Forbes' annual list of the world's richest women in March. Of course, what Lori might receive if they divorced would depend on which assets qualify as marital property and whether the couple signed a prenup or postnup, which remains unclear. In California, courts generally divide community property equally unless the spouses agree to a different split.

If you didn't live through the transition from PATA (Parallel ATA) to SATA (Serial ATA) in the early 2000s, it can be hard to understand how much of a revolution it was. PATA was finicky, bulky, and slow. SATA was the first proper redesign of drive interface technology in decades, and for a time, it was good.

Jensen Huang, now sporting the title of "former" Nvidia CEO, wasn't just having an affair with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset. Nor was he juggling two extramarital relationships — as another slightly less politically-charged claim surfaced on Wednesday, Nov., alleging he was romantically involved with Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, Kimberly Powell.

No, in the wake of Huang's Thursday resignation, a third allegation has surfaced that suggests Huang was intimately involved in at least one other company employee while married to wife and Nvidia fortune co-controller Lori Huang.

SEE ALSO: Nvidia chaos, Dem sweep, lawsuits, protests: AI's terrible, no-good November

Two former Nvidia employees spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for its Nov. 12 report, which did not name the employee. Nvidia declined to comment on the allegations, and none of the involved parties responded to Reuters' requests for comment.

The internet has been on fire since the news dropped.

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Huang previously admitted to being unfaithful to his wife after reports linked him to Chinese businesswoman and cloud computing exec Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le. According to the New York Times, Alice Huang was being surveilled by U.S. counterintelligence authorities for suspected espionage. She is a controlling shareholder of Chinese computing company Megaspeed, which was previously investigated by U.S. authorities for allegedly skirting U.S. export controls to bring advanced chips to Chinese markets. Megaspeed is still listed as an official cloud partner of Nvidia, Reuters reported.

Nvidia, one of the most valuable tech companies in the world, saw its stock plummet after news broke of Huang's ties to the Megaspeed shareholder. In just four days, the company has lost $450 billion in market value.

President Donald Trump, who chose Huang as one of his tech advisors, has so far maintained his support of Huang while denying knowledge of the relationships. Following the CEO's resignation, Trump celebrated Huang's career — and then floated former Apple CEO Tim Cook as Huang's replacement.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 4:59 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 13 at 1:59 a.m. PT — Microsoft says it's "seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue." The company also said it has extended email timeout to 48 hours to help preserve delayed mail during this event.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1:08 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:08 p.m. PT — Microsoft is still looking into the cause of the outage, but states that at present it is "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:58 p.m. ET / 7:58 p.m. PT — Unfortunately, Microsoft's efforts to bring servers back online aren't going as planned. It appears to have been unable to address the issue of them becoming unresponsive again, and has stated it is now searching for different ways to increase traffic capacity.

"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft wrote in an update on X.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8:07 p.m. ET / 5:07 p.m. PT — Microsoft has revised its list of features and services impacted by this outage, stating that it is affecting ones that interact with Exchange Online and email services. Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint Online, Teams, Copilot AI, and 365 are all continuing to have various issues, though Azure appears to be operational.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:53 p.m. ET / 4:53 p.m. PT — Microsoft has issued a new update stating that the servers they've brought back online may become unresponsive again when they receive traffic. The company is currently investigating the issue, though in the meantime it's limiting the types of traffic going to these servers in some locations.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 6:23 p.m. ET / 3:23 p.m. PT — Microsoft states that it is bringing some servers back online, and "they remain stable so far." Users should expect a "gradual recovery."

"We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," Microsoft wrote in an update on X. "In parallel, we've streamlined the process of returning the remaining affected servers to service."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 5:22 p.m. ET / 2:22 p.m. PT — The outage continued into the evening, as Microsoft provided its latest update: "We’re opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 4:21 p.m. ET / 1:21 p.m. PT — On its status page and X account, Microsoft said it has potentially identified some "contributors" to the problem and was deploying fixes. The company said some servers were already back online.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 3:10 p.m. ET / 12:10 p.m. PT — On its Microsoft 365 Status account on X, the company said it's deploying multiple mitigations to restore service.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 2:29 p.m. ET / 11:29 p.m. PT — According to the latest updates on the Microsoft service health status webpage, the current issues affect Microsoft 365 business and enterprise customers, not Microsoft's consumer tech products.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 12:37 p.m. ET / 9:37 p.m. PT— As of this writing, users in multiple regions are still having trouble accessing Microsoft 365.

Microsoft customers are reporting problems accessing a variety of the company's software products and services on Thursday afternoon.

What services are affected by the ongoing Microsoft outage? The company's server status page stated that users may have trouble accessing Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, and Microsoft Defender XDR.

A recent update indicated the company was actively deploying fixes.

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"We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," the company wrote in an update to users. "As a precaution, we've paused all deployments and configuration changes while we review recent changes for any correlation to this event. We've also moved traffic for some services off the affected infrastructure to further reduce load, with additional traffic moves in progress."

In addition to the updates from Microsoft itself, Downdetector shows sharply elevated user reports for the following Microsoft services:

• Microsoft Teams

• Microsoft Outlook

• Microsoft Copilot AI

• Microsoft 365

• Microsoft Azure

• Microsoft Store

The company initially acknowledged an outage at 12:54 p.m. ET through its Microsoft 365 Status account on X:

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While the initial update indicated the outage was impacting email inboxes "in the Americas," later updates confirmed that other regions and products were also being impacted.

An update posted at 1:07 p.m. ET stated: "We've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543." The company added, "We've begun redistributing connection traffic across our broader worldwide infrastructure to help balance the load."

The problem was so severe that some customers may not be able to access the Microsoft 365 admin center at all, as the company wrote on X that users should instead refer to the Microsoft service status webpage. However, this page was also down for part of the day, according to multiple Mashable reporters.

In another update, posted at 2:50 p.m. ET, the company said it was "testing a configuration change to address a problem that's causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable." The company said it is also restarting affected servers in an attempt to restore service.

Later, at 4:06 p.m. ET, Microsoft said it had deployed a fix that allowed some servers to go back online. Beyond that, the company has identified some minor configuration changes that may help explain the ongoing outage.

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However, as the standard workday drew to a close on Thursday evening, Microsoft 365 remained down for many users. In its most recent update on X, the company acknowledged its earlier efforts had failed to restore service.

"We’re opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief."

Mashable contacted Microsoft with questions about the outage, and we'll update this story if we receive a response.

This is a developing story...

After reports of multiple affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy, Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia.

With Huang's resignation from the chipmaking giant that he helped found, who will take the helm at Nvidia?

While Nvidia quickly announced an interim CEO in Colette Kress, there's a lot of speculation about who will take a more permanent role as head of one of the world's most valuable companies.

Let's take a look at some of the names.

Colette Kress

First up is Nvidia's longtime Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, already a billionaire in her own right.

Kress technically has the CEO job right now, as Nvidia paired Huang's resignation announcement with the news that Kress would fill in as interim CEO. And, if she's able to right the ship and help Nvidia come out of Huang's scandals relatively unscathed, she's a favorite to take the position long-term, too.

Before being promoted to the interim CEO position, Kress has worked as the CFO at the company since 2013. She previously worked as CFO for divisions at Microsoft and Cisco. Nvidia's investors are familiar with her too from the company's quarterly earnings calls, so she may have the upper hand there too.

Ian Buck

Kress may have the advantage of being the interim CEO, but Ian Buck seems to be the favorite amongst the speculators.

Like Kress, Buck would also be an internal choice for CEO. Buck has worked at Nvidia since 2004 and is currently the company's Vice President and General Manager of Hyperscale and High-Performance Computing (HPC). 

In his role at Nvidia, Buck is responsible for the company's data center, cloud, and HPC product lines — all central to Nvidia's success amid the AI boom.

In addition, Buck is credited as the creator of CUDA, or Compute Unified Device Architecture. CUDA is Nvidia's proprietary platform that developers use to run their software on Nvidia's GPUs.

Rene Haas

Rene Haas's name has immediately been floated as a potential fit as Nvidia CEO. Why?

If investors are looking for an outsider to come in and take over Nvidia, Rene Haas is likely the guy to do it.

Haas is currently the CEO of British chipmaker Arm, so he already works as a high-level executive within the industry. And Arm and Nvidia have collaborated for over a decade on designing and manufacturing CPUs.

However, Haas has another big thing going for him. He's an outsider who used to be an insider. Haas worked at Nvidia for seven years before leaving the company in 2013. He worked closely with Huang as the company's Vice President and general manager of its computing products business.

Lisa Su

Lisa Su is the head of Nvidia's biggest competitor, AMD. Would she make the jump? That's what some speculators are betting on as her name floats to the top as one of Huang's potential successors.

Su has led AMD as CEO since 2014 and, interestingly, is also Jensen Huang's cousin, so it would certainly make for a good story.

Johny Srouji

According to a report from Semafor, the outside firm that Nvidia has hired to find Huang's replacement is seriously looking at Apple's current chief hardware officer Johny Srouji.

Srouji was recently promoted by Apple from the company's Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies to Apple's Chief Hardware Officer following John Ternus' transition to CEO of the company. In his role as chip lead at Apple, Srouji helped lead the company's transition from Intel chips to its own Apple silicon chipset.

Notably, Bloomberg's Apple insider Mark Gurman reported last December that Srouji was thinking of exiting the company, although former Apple CEO Tim Cook was able to convince him to stay. Is Nvidia the opening that Srouji was looking for? We'll see.

Tim Cook

Speaking of Apple and Tim Cook, the former Apple CEO's name is also being spread as a potential replacement for Huang.

And who's throwing Tim Cook's name in the ring? Why, the President of the United States, of course!

"NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place —TIM COOK of Apple," President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social after Huang resigned. "A Legend replaces a Legend!”

Tech industry experts are already throwing cold water on this idea, however.

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Cook just left his CEO position at Apple and would have to step down as Apple's executive chairman if he took the job with Nvidia, so he seems the least likely of the potential candidates. However, his name is being seriously passed around amongst investors and speculators alike.

Nikesh Arora

Nikesh Arora is currently the CEO of cybersecurity firm Palto Alto Networks. However, Arora worked at a number of tech companies over the years, including Google, where he was Chief Business Officer, and T-Mobile. 

Arora also previously worked as President and COO of SoftBank, a major global tech investment firm.

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SSDs (Solid State Drives) were not created in a vacuum. Since these flash-based storage devices had to fill a (literal) gap left by hard drives, it was necessary to create them in a way that bridged the gap between the two technologies.

Smart furniture is stupidly expensive. On my hunt for full-length mirrors with smart RGB lighting, it hit me. I don't want to pay $150 or more for something that does not even connect to my smart home ecosystem. That's why I decided to make it myself, all on a tight budget. Going the DIY route let me create something perfect for my needs, instead of sifting through the boring, overpriced options on the market. The total cost of making my own smart RGB mirror was astonishingly cheap. Here's how I did it.

Dremels have long been trusted by people who want a comfortable, reliable rotary tool that works for everything from odd jobs around the house to professional daily use. The brand's latest 8150 takes things to another level with upgraded design features, and now you can get it at its lowest price ever on Amazon.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 4:59 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 13 at 1:59 a.m. PT — Microsoft says it's "seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue." The company also said it has extended email timeout to 48 hours to help preserve delayed mail during this event.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1:08 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:08 p.m. PT — Microsoft is still looking into the cause of the outage, but states that at present it is "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:58 p.m. ET / 7:58 p.m. PT — Unfortunately, Microsoft's efforts to bring servers back online aren't going as planned. It appears to have been unable to address the issue of them becoming unresponsive again, and has stated it is now searching for different ways to increase traffic capacity.

"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft wrote in an update on X.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8:07 p.m. ET / 5:07 p.m. PT — Microsoft has revised its list of features and services impacted by this outage, stating that it is affecting ones that interact with Exchange Online and email services. Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint Online, Teams, Copilot AI, and 365 are all continuing to have various issues, though Azure appears to be operational.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:53 p.m. ET / 4:53 p.m. PT — Microsoft has issued a new update stating that the servers they've brought back online may become unresponsive again when they receive traffic. The company is currently investigating the issue, though in the meantime it's limiting the types of traffic going to these servers in some locations.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 6:23 p.m. ET / 3:23 p.m. PT — Microsoft states that it is bringing some servers back online, and "they remain stable so far." Users should expect a "gradual recovery."

"We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," Microsoft wrote in an update on X. "In parallel, we've streamlined the process of returning the remaining affected servers to service."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 4:17 p.m. ET / 1:17 p.m. PT — In its latest update, Microsoft stated on X that it's deploying fixes and some servers have already come back online. The company's status page still listed Microsoft 365 service as "degraded."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 3:01 p.m. ET / 12:01 p.m. PT — The Microsoft 365 Status account on X shared updates explaining why the outage is happening and what they are doing to fix it.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 2:20 p.m. ET / 11:20 p.m. PT — The Microsoft service status page is loading normally again, and a notification reads: "Users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services."

The status page in question. Credit: Screenshot: Microsoft

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 1:45 p.m. ET / 10:45 p.m. PT — Microsoft initially described the issue as primarily affecting mailboxes "in the Americas." However, in an update posted to X, the company acknowledged other services and locations were also affected.

Thousands of Microsoft Outlook users reported an outage on Thursday afternoon, with user error reports for Microsoft products spiking sharply.

The platform DownDetector showed error reports spiking around 12:30 p.m. ET. By 1:12 p.m. ET, the service had received more than 130,000 reports, indicating serious problems with the popular email service. Virtually all Microsoft services showed elevated error reports, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft Teams.

Credit: Screenshot courtesy of DownDetector

Mashable reached out to Microsoft for comment, and we'll update this story if we receive more information.

From the beginning, there were signs of a widespread problem with Microsoft services. Case in point: The Microsoft service status page was not loading for Mashable reporters for part of the day, though it has since come back online.

The Microsoft 365 Status account on X initially posted a message acknowledging an outage at 12:54 p.m. ET: "We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas."

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At 1:07 p.m. ET, the company wrote, "While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543." The company added, "a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors."

The company's status page indicated that the outage specifically affects Microsoft 365, the company's suite of tools for enterprise customers. Microsoft consumer products should still be operational.

Microsoft also clarified that users may have trouble accessing Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, and Microsoft Defender XDR, in particular.

In the latest updates, posted to X at 4:06 p.m. ET, Microsoft said it had started deploying a fix that would allow some servers to come back online. The company has also found "a small number of configuration updates" that may be part of the overall problem.

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Outlook previously experienced a widespread outage in August. At the time, the company cited a "misconfiguration issue that prevented authentication components from deploying correctly.

This is a developing story...

One of 2026's new movies on HBO Max has found a substantial audience in streaming. That movie is The Invite, an excellent comedy starring Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Invite hit HBO Max on Oct. 23, and it's seemingly been in the top three ever since. I cannot recommend it enough; it's that good.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 4:59 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 13 at 1:59 a.m. PT — Microsoft says it's "seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue." The company also said it has extended email timeout to 48 hours to help preserve delayed mail during this event.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1:08 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:08 p.m. PT — Microsoft is still looking into the cause of the outage, but states that at present it is "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:58 p.m. ET / 7:58 p.m. PT — Unfortunately, Microsoft's efforts to bring servers back online aren't going as planned. It appears to have been unable to address the issue of them becoming unresponsive again, and has stated it is now searching for different ways to increase traffic capacity.

"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft wrote in an update on X.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8:07 p.m. ET / 5:07 p.m. PT — Microsoft has revised its list of features and services impacted by this outage, stating that it is affecting ones that interact with Exchange Online and email services. Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint Online, Teams, Copilot AI, and 365 are all continuing to have various issues, though Azure appears to be operational.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:53 p.m. ET / 4:53 p.m. PT — Microsoft has issued a new update stating that the servers they've brought back online may become unresponsive again when they receive traffic. The company is currently investigating the issue, though in the meantime it's limiting the types of traffic going to these servers in some locations.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 6:23 p.m. ET / 3:23 p.m. PT — Microsoft states that it is bringing some servers back online, and "they remain stable so far." Users should expect a "gradual recovery."

"We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," Microsoft wrote in an update on X. "In parallel, we've streamlined the process of returning the remaining affected servers to service."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 5:26 p.m. ET / 2:26 p.m. PT — Microsoft services remained down on Thursday evening, as Microsoft acknowledged ongoing problems in an update posted to X.

The Microsoft global outage has affected Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services, starting around 12:30 p.m. ET.

If Outlook wouldn't load for you on Thursday, Microsoft now has a theory about what went wrong. The company said in an X post on Nov. 12 that a component responsible for checking whether its servers are working properly may be behind the failures that took some of them out of service.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft outage: Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook, Copilot all impacted

In its service health update, Microsoft said some servers went offline after failing automated health checks. With parts of its infrastructure under heavier load than usual across multiple regions, the company said that extra strain was likely contributing to connection problems.

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Microsoft also says it’s "deploying a targeted change to bypass this component on a subset of servers" to see if that brings them back online. It has also taken steps to keep more servers from going out of service. So far, Microsoft says it hasn’t found a recent change that coincided with the start of the outage. The company is still investigating why the checks failed.

Microsoft initially flagged trouble accessing Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas. Exchange Online is the service that stores and delivers email for many Outlook users.

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The company later warned that the issue "may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region." Around 1 p.m. ET, nearly 130,000 Outlook problem reports appeared on Downdetector, and users reported trouble loading their inboxes and sending or receiving emails. Copilot users also reported problems.

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Earlier Thursday, Microsoft had also flagged problems with Teams in North America under incident TM1550488. In a follow-up on X, the company said its automated recovery systems had kicked in and were reducing the disruption.

Microsoft is posting updates under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center. If the admin center is also out of reach, Microsoft is directing users to its public service status page.

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This is a developing story...

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Microsoft's popular suite of enterprise products, known as Microsoft 365, which includes Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, suffered from a massive outage on Thursday.

Or did it?

While more than 100,000 users reported problems accessing Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 on the platform DownDetector, Microsoft is saying it's actually a cloud tool called Microsoft Exchange that's causing problems.

So, what is Microsoft Exchange? And why does it being down affect your ability to access your email or message your coworkers?

Microsoft Exchange is the backend cloud tool that sends data updates to Outlook. It's essentially the server that stores the actual data, handles the mail flow, syncs the data to services like Outlook, and controls account security policies. Put simply, Outlook is the front end; Exchange is the back end.

For most users, though, this is a distinction without a difference. The end result is that users can't access their email, calendar, or messages.

The company has been providing updates on the situation on X:

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Mashable reached out to Microsoft with questions about the outage, but the company has not responded, as of this writing.

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There are a few ways to react when Outlook goes down in the middle of the workday. Some people keep refreshing their inboxes or ask a coworker if theirs is loading. On Thursday, plenty of people used the downtime to post on social media, where an afternoon without email turned out to be pretty good material.

An ongoing Microsoft 365 outage left people struggling to open their work inboxes, and Microsoft said other services, including Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, could also be affected. Reports of Outlook problems began spiking around 12:30 p.m. ET, and by 1:12 p.m. ET, Downdetector had logged more than 130,000 reports, as Mashable previously reported, with the apt subtitle, "Because there's not enough happening in the tech world today..."

SEE ALSO: Is Outlook down? Possible Microsoft outage locks down email inboxes.

For some X users, the outage hit just as they were getting started with their days. "As soon as I sign in outlook is down. Aww man!" wrote one user. Another declared himself "off work for the afternoon." In a reply to Microsoft's outage alert, one X user said, "if outlook doesnt work in the next 15 minutes we should all be able to leave work early today."

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For others, the outage landed around lunchtime on the East Coast, and Adweek had an idea for how to spend it. "outlook is down which means the three-martini lunch is back," the publication posted on X. In the replies, users were grateful to "whoever chewed the wires at the outlook offices, bless your heart fr," while some were very worried about the state of their inbox. "oh noooo Outlook is down, how will I respond to all of these very important emails? ahhh I hope they hurry up and fix it oh noooooo"

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There was a good chunk of those on social media who weren't surprised one bit by the outage. "If I had a dime for every 365 issue, I’d be rich!" wrote one user on Reddit. Another said Microsoft's Power Platform was running slowly. "So everything is as expected." One commenter dubbed the service "Microsoft 364," and another figured it would be down to Microsoft 363 if the outage lasted more than 48 hours. "Microsoft when Outlook and Teams go down. Again," wrote one user on X, alongside a GIF from The Naked Gun in which Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin tells a crowd there's "nothing to see here" as a fireworks factory explodes behind him. Subtle comparison.

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Microsoft first flagged trouble accessing Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas at 12:54 p.m. ET. The company later said the outage could affect Microsoft 365 users in any region. Microsoft's public status page listed consumer products as operational, while its business and enterprise customers faced connectivity issues.

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Exchange Online, the service behind many work and school Outlook inboxes, was the hardest hit. Microsoft also listed Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, SharePoint Online, and Defender XDR as potentially affected. The company said unusually high load on part of its infrastructure was likely contributing to the connection problems and that it had rerouted traffic and was restarting affected servers.

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