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Microsoft’s ‘Blue Screen of Death’ Dies After 40 Years of Memes, Jokes, T-Shirts

Meet its mournful replacement, the black screen of death, which won’t have the sad face.

Like Pudding Pops and Benetton sweaters, another 1980s icon is gone. After 40 years of delivering the tragic news of a PC crash to Windows users, Microsoft’s infamous «blue screen of death» is going away. A black screen of death will be replacing it, albeit without the sad face.

The blue screen of death has been around since Windows 1.0 came out in 1985. Named for its bright blue color, it’s a critical error screen that pops up on computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system when the system crashes. The text on the screen varies, but it’s sometimes accompanied by a frowning face made up of a colon and a left parenthesis. 🙁

Microsoft says the new black screen of death, which it calls a «simplified UI for unexpected restarts,» will appear in its place starting later this summer on all Windows 11, version 24H2 devices.

The black screen of death will show the stop code and faulty system driver, allowing IT admins to more quickly identify the issue that caused the crash, rather than having to use debugging software.

It’s not just a cosmetic change, it’s part of Microsoft’s Windows Resiliency Initiative, which is designed to increase resiliency and security in Windows systems. In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft said that the new black screen of death is part of «streamlining the unexpected restart experience» and aiding in «quick machine recovery.» The aim is to reduce recovery time to 2 seconds following a PC crash.

The Windows Resiliency Initiative was launched following 2024’s CrowdStrike outage, which caused systems to go offline for numerous businesses, airports and governmental services. More than 8 million devices were affected.

A pop-culture icon

Over 40 years, the blue screen of death worked its way into pop culture, with plenty of memes, a subreddit devoted to it, and T-shirts and other items bearing its image. 

When Microsoft suffered a massive global IT outage due to a CrowdStrike security update in July 2024, one X user dubbed the day International BlueScreen Day, sharing a photo of a conference room full of laptops all showing the blue screen of death.

Something about the unmistakable blue color of the error screen mixed with the frowny emoticon — and the reminder that everyone’s computer crashed once in a while — made it an icon.

«I bought my husband a blue screen of death T-shirt and he wore it to work at Microsoft corporate headquarters back in the day,» CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper said. «I wondered for a minute if anyone would be offended, but the first day he wore it, multiple people came up to him in the cafeteria to compliment it and ask where they could buy one for themselves.»

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Nov. 24, #1619

Today’s Wordle is tricky. Here are hints, answers and help for Nov. 24, #1619.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.


Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little tricky. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with D.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with H.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer is a flour-based mixture used to bake bread.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is DOUGH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Nov. 23, No. 1618 was BUNNY.

Recent Wordle answers

Nov. 19, No. 1614: MAKER

Nov. 20, No. 1615: GRAVE

Nov. 21, No. 1616: VOWEL

Nov. 22, No. 1617: THICK

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 24, #631

Today’s Strands puzzle has fun theme, or so says a former farm girl. Here are hints, answers and help for Nov. 24, #631.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.


Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun theme, or so says this former farm girl. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Horsing around.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Giddy up!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

  • GALE, REGAL, GAIN, ROOM, MOOR, JOCK, WARN, NEAT, WART, FIRE, QUIET, QUITE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

  • GROOM, JOCKEY, FARRIER, VETERINARIAN, WRANGLER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is EQUESTRIAN. To find it, start with the E that’s four letters down on the far-left row, and wind up and over.


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Technologies

Before You Order a $20K Home Robot, There’s Something You Should See

It’s designed to do your chores — with some help from folks behind the curtain.

The robot stands 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs about as much as a golden retriever and is nearly the price of a brand-new budget car. 

This is Neo, the humanoid robot. It’s billed as a personal assistant you can talk to and eventually rely on to handle everyday tasks, including loading your dishwasher and folding your laundry. 

Neo doesn’t come cheap: it’ll cost you $20,000. And even then, you’ll still have to train this new home bot, and possibly need a remote assist as well.

If that still sounds enticing, preorders are now open (for $200 down). You’ll be signing up as an early adopter for what Neo’s maker, a California-based company called 1X, is calling a «consumer-ready humanoid.» That’s opposed to other humanoids under development from the likes of Tesla and Figure, which are, for the moment at least, more focused on factory environments.

Neo is a whole order of magnitude different from robot vacuums like those from Roomba, Eufy and Ecovacs, and embodies a long-running sci-fi fantasy of robot maids and butlers doing chores and picking up after us. If this is the future, read on for more of what’s in store.


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What the Neo robot can do around the house

The pitch from 1X is that Neo can do all manner of household chores: fold laundry, run a vacuum, tidy shelves and bring in the groceries. It can open doors, climb stairs and even act as a home entertainment system.

Neo appears to move smoothly, with a soft, almost human-like gait, thanks to 1X’s tendon-driven motor system that gives it gentle motion and impressive strength. The company says it can lift up to 154 pounds and carry 55 pounds, but it is quieter than a refrigerator. It’s covered in soft materials and neutral colors, making it look less intimidating than metallic prototypes from other companies.

The company says Neo has a 4-hour runtime. Its hands are IP68-rated, meaning they’re submersible in water. It can connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 5G. For conversation, it has a built-in large language model (LLM), the same sort of AI technology that powers ChatGPT and Gemini.

The primary way to control the Neo robot will be by speaking to it, just as if it were a person.  

Still, Neo’s usefulness today depends heavily on how you define useful. The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern got an up-close look at Neo at 1X’s headquarters and found that, at least for now, it’s largely teleoperated, meaning a human often operates it remotely using a virtual-reality headset and controllers. 

«I didn’t see Neo do anything autonomously, although the company did share a video of Neo opening a door on its own,» Stern wrote last week. 1X CEO Bernt Børnich reportedly told her that Neo will do most things autonomously in 2026, though he also acknowledged that the quality «may lag at first.»

The company’s FAQ says that if there’s a chore request Neo doesn’t know how to accomplish, you can schedule an expert from 1X to help the robot «learn while getting the job done.»

What you need to know about Neo and privacy

Part of what early adopters are signing up for is to allow Neo to learn from their environment, so that future versions can operate more independently. 

That learning process raises questions about privacy and trust. The robot uses a mix of visual, audio and contextual intelligence — meaning it can see, hear and remember interactions with you in your home. 

«If you buy this product, it is because you’re OK with that social contract,» Børnich told the Journal. «It’s less about Neo instantly doing your chores and more about you helping Neo learn to do them safely and effectively.»

Neo’s reliance on human operation behind the scenes prompted a response from John Carmack, a computer industry luminary known for his work with VR systems and the lead programmer of classic video games, including Doom and Quake. 

«Companies selling the dream of autonomous household humanoid robots today would be better off embracing reality and selling ‘remote operated household help’,» he wrote in a post on the X social network.

1X says it’s taking steps to protect your privacy: Neo listens only when it recognizes it’s being addressed, and its cameras will blur out humans. You can restrict Neo from entering or viewing specific areas of your home, and the robot will never be teleoperated without owner approval, the company says. 

But inviting an AI-equipped humanoid to observe your home life isn’t a small step.

The first units are expected to ship to customers in the US in 2026. There is a $499 monthly subscription alternative to the $20,000 full purchase price, although it will be available at an unspecified later date. A broader international rollout is promised for 2027.

Neo’s got a long road ahead of it to live up to the expectations set by Rosie the Robot in The Jetsons way back when. But this is no Hanna-Barbera cartoon. What we’re seeing now is a much more tangible harbinger of change.

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