Facebook Down, 5G Up, Boeing 737 Max Grounded

It’s a busy hump day.

The Verge (and others) are reporting that Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp are having a difficult day, working to bring its services back online:

Facebook and Instagram appear to be partially down for some users around the world today. While you can open both platforms, it looks like you can’t send or receive messages on either platform, and you can’t post new content either.

WhatsApp appeared to be fine for many people, but users in Paraguay, India, Bangladesh, Argentina, and more note that they are experiencing issues with sending messages. DownDetector indicates that those in Brazil were experiencing the most severe outages.

Oculus Go users are also reporting issues.

Meanwhile, President Trump has announced a ban of Boeing 737 Max flights, according to a report from The New York Times: 

President Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States was grounding Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft, reversing an earlier decision by American regulators to keep the jets flying after a second deadly crash in Ethiopia.

The Federal Aviation Administration had for days resisted calls to ground the plane even as safety regulators in some 42 countries had banned flights by the jets. As recently as Tuesday, the agency said it had seen “no systemic performance issues” that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet.

“The safety of the American people, of all people, is our paramount concern,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the White House.

And if you’re looking for some futuristic technology good news, you can smile if you live in Chicago and Minneapolis: Verizon’s 5G service is slated to launch there on April 11 and will cost $85-$105 U.S. for unlimited plans.

Bloomberg reports how Verizon got around the absence of 5G phones as they work to make this forward leap in cellular communications:

Verizon sidestepped one of the main challenges to 5G introduction — the absence of 5G phones — by offering an adaptation. Starting Thursday, the company is taking orders for a $50 snap-on module for the Motorola Z3 phone, making it the only phone that will be enabled for the advanced service by the April 11 launch date.