TechBytes: Good Ideas, Bad Results

Dec. 29, 2011 — -- In today's TechBytes: When good tech goes bad.

Customers in more than a dozen states have complained that they're having trouble connecting on both Verizon's 4G and 3G networks.

Again. It's the third outage this month.

Verizon says the problems only affect newer 4G phones. 3G phones are operating normally.

New York Times Embarrassment

The New York Times has digital egg on its face this morning.

First, nearly 9 million subscribers got an email saying their home-delivery accounts were canceled.

The Times initially blamed the erroneous messages on spammers. And then it had to admit that one of its employees made a mistake.

The message was only supposed to go to 300 people.

Frustrated Fans

When Saints quarterback Drew Brees broke the NFL passing record, fans attending the Monday night football game at the New Orleans Superdome couldn't tell anyone.

Their tweets, texts and calls failed because the antennas at the stadium were overwhelmed.