An article looks at the biggest technology debacles of 2016, and included HP Inc’s firmware update for printers.
Readitquick.com looked at some technical disasters throughout the year, and HP Inc was on the list. The article said that “without the knowledge of its customers, in September 2016, HP introduced a security update in its Officejet Pro printers which stopped the printing if a third-party ink cartridge was detected”.
The company was inundated with complaints, and it was noted that they were “taken to task for not being more transparent” about their updates and for their statement defending their actions, which said they wanted to “ensure the best consumer experience and protect them from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges,” although HP Inc did apologise by saying: “We should have done a better job of communicating about the authentication procedure to customers, and we apologise.”
Others on the list included Yahoo for its data breach; Samsung for their Galaxy Note 7. which had to be recalled due to the battery catching fire; Apple for disabling iPhones; Facebook for its error messaging; Microsoft for the launch of Tay, which was retrained by internet trolls and became abusive; Salesforce for causing its cloud-based CRM to be down for a day; Google for its April Fools Day joke that backfired; IBM for the Australian census debacle; and lastly Pokemon Go, which dropped in popularity for not holding “players’ interest”, and problems with features and the app.