Like the "year 2000" problem, in which old software was not designed to recognize any date after 1999, the new glitch was caused by a software error that treats the year 2010 as if it does not exist. The DSGV German banking association said that the problem still affected most credit cards when they were used to withdraw money.

Computer companies know how to load-test a server to figure out how it will respond under unusually high demand. Why didn't AT&T do the same for its internal procedures to handle iPhone activation?

Black Friday saw consumers struggle briefly to access the Web sites of several top online stores. But the most serious service disruption was at Walmart.com, according to Ben Rushlo, senior manager of competitive research at Keynote Systems.

New evidence has emerged that faulty computer software could have led to a Chinook helicopter crash which killed 25 of Britain's top intelligence experts

Seven restaurants have sued the maker of a bank card-processing system for failing to secure the product from a Romanian hacker who breached their systems.

After some harsh reviews about its performance, the company acknowledges kinks in its e-book reader and says the software will improve with upgrades early next year.

The American public has been gifted with its share of computer-based turkeys -- information technology projects gone wrong, often at spectacular expense. Some of these projects have been unmitigated disasters, abandoned before the pop-up thermometer ever popped up, after years of work and millions, or even billions, of dollars.

A survey has shown Australian enterprises are experiencing incredibly high levels of software project failure, with more than half not being completed successfully. At an average of $197,000 per week, failed projects are wasting millions of dollars for already cash strapped companies.

The No. 7 line is slated to get the communications upgrade as part of another ongoing project. The project was originally supposed to be completed in September 2006 and cost about $170 million. It's now expected to cost about $200 million. There were problems from the beginning. One major setback occurred when a "fatal flaw" in the software was discovered a year into the project, Bienstock said.

Scores of well-publicized software failures have taken a toll on careers, lives and resources, yet projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. Top programming experts, though, say that there are commonalities to these failures that, if avoided, can help organizations achieve greater success.

The city's Finance Department last week mothballed its useless new $4.3 million property-appraisal computer system, The Post has learned.

Software errors cost the U.S. economy $60 billion annually in rework, lost productivity and actual damages. We all know software bugs can be annoying, but faulty software can also be expensive, embarrassing, destructive and deadly.

This week's list of the worst software disasters should be more controversial than any "best of" list, since a lot of software is bad. But not all bad software is significantly bad. There are also situations where software is just bad for a minute, then quickly fixed. In other situations the software isn't really bad, it's just that people hated it.

Bad management, communication or training to blame for failures

UVA faculty calls it an inconvenience, a disaster

Glitch discovered after 9-month investigation