A computer glitch is the failure of a system, usually containing a computing device, to complete its functions or to perform them properly. In public declarations, glitch is used to suggest a minor fault which will soon be rectified and is therefore a euphemism by comparison to bug, which is a factual statement that a programming fault is to blame for a system failure.
It frequently refers to an error which is not detected at the time it occurs but shows up later in data errors or incorrect human decisions. While the fault is usually attributed to the computer hardware, this is often not the case since hardware failures rarely go undetected. Situations which are frequently called computer glitches are:
- Incorrectly written software (software bug)
- Incorrect instructions given by the operator (operator error) (this might also be considered a software bug)
- Undetected invalid input data (this might also be considered a software bug)
- Undetected communications errors
- Computer viruses
- Computer exploiting (sometimes erroneously called "hacking")
Such glitches could produce problems such as:
- Keyboard malfunction
- Number key failure
- Screen abnormalities (turned left, right or upside down)
- Random program malfunctions
- Abnormal program registering
Examples of computer glitches causing disruption include an unexpected shutdown of a water filtration plant in New Canaan, 2010; failures in the Computer Aided Dispatch system used by the police in Austin, resulting in unresponded 911 calls; and an unexpected bit flip causing the Cassini spacecraft to enter "safe mode" in November 2010.
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Famous quotes containing the word computer:
“The computer takes up where psychoanalysis left off. It takes the ideas of a decentered self and makes it more concrete by modeling mind as a multiprocessing machine.”
—Sherry Turkle (b. 1948)