Leap day 2024 was not without its technical complications. For instance, for more than 10 hours Thursday in New Zealand, drivers could not pay via credit card at gas pumps. Such problems are all part of the grand tradition of leap years, which, as we see in this edition of Tech Time Warp, serve as a quadrennial reminder that behind every computer is a human who makes mistakes.
While leap year 2000 was relatively calm overall—likely because everyone was still on high alert following Y2K—every four years Feb. 29 brings surprises:
- In 2008, the Microsoft Zune (remember those?) just stopped working on Dec. 31. The official advice from Microsoft was to wait it out. Just let the Zune 30GB battery fully die for a successful restart.
- In 2012 the TomTom GPS device was felled by a leap year bug in GPS receiver software provided by a third-party supplier. The bug resulted in users being unable to establish a GPS position. Instead, they were seeing a gray screen or receiving a poor signal message.
- Also in 2012, a Feb. 29 programming issue caused a 12-hour Windows Azure outage.
Sometimes devices even succumb to leap year issues in non-leap years. In 2010—not a leap year!—an internal clock in the PlayStation 3 was programmed to recognize 2010 as a leap year, bringing about widespread connectivity issues.
Morale of the story: You might want to set a calendar reminder for 2028. Just make sure your calendar software recognizes leap years.
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Photo: Ronnie Chua / Shutterstock
