Apeel's Grape Seed Coating Once Kept Six in Ten American Supermarket Avocados From Spoiling. Then the Internet Found the Safety Data Sheet for a British Degreaser Also Called Apeel.
Apeel Sciences began in 2012 with a $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundation, awarded to a materials scientist named James Rogers to reduce the amount of food that rots between the farm and the plate in countries without reliable refrigeration. A second grant of about $1 million followed in
A Texas Power Company Charged $9.99 a Month to Let Customers Pay Exactly What the Wholesale Market Paid. In February 2021 the Market Paid $9,000 a Megawatt-Hour, and Griddy Drafted It Straight From Their Accounts.
Griddy Energy, a small Houston company that launched in 2017, sold Texans a simple idea. Most households in the state's deregulated electricity market pay a retailer a fixed rate, and the retailer carries the risk that wholesale power will cost more than it charged. Griddy removed the retailer&
Australia Paid Up to $1,600 a Home in 2009 to Insulate a Million Ceilings in a Year, Using Installers Who Signed Up Online. Its First Industry Meeting Heard New Zealand Had Tried This and Three People Electrocuted Themselves.
On 3 February 2009 Kevin Rudd announced the Energy Efficient Homes Package, part of a $42 billion stimulus plan meant to carry Australia through the global recession. Its centrepiece, the Home Insulation Program, offered free ceiling insulation worth up to $1,600 a home, with a target of 2.2
Subway Told Australian Customers Its Footlong Was a Trademark Name, Not a Measurement of Length. The US Trademark Board Ruled It Was a Measurement of Length and Refused Subway the Trademark.
In January 2013 Matt Corby, a teenager in Perth, bought a Subway Footlong and, as the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit would later put it, "for reasons unknown, decided to measure it." It was 11 inches long. He photographed it next to a tape
In 1992 Pepsi Paid Cash to Any Filipino Holding a Bottle Cap With the Number Read Out on the Evening News. On 25 May the Number Was 349, Which It Had Already Printed on Up to 800,000 Caps.
In February 1992 Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines and PepsiCo began a promotion called Number Fever. Under the crowns and resealable caps of Pepsi, 7-Up, Mirinda and Mountain Dew they printed three things: a three-digit number, a seven-character alphanumeric security code, and a cash prize of up to
A Japanese Town Put Up a 20-Metre Screen to Stop Tourists Photographing Mount Fuji Above a Lawson. Within a Week It Had Around Ten Holes, All at Eye Level and Just the Right Size for a Camera Lens.
Mount Fuji can be photographed from a great many places in Fujikawaguchiko, a lakeside town of about 10,000 people in Yamanashi Prefecture. One of them became more popular than the others. From a narrow stretch of pavement in front of a dentist's office, across a busy road
After Seven People Died From Poisoned Tylenol in 1982, the FDA Required Over-the-Counter Medicine to Come in Tamper-Resistant Packaging. In 1998 It Renamed the Packaging Tamper-Evident, Because It Did Not Resist Tampering.
On 29 September 1982 Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old from Elk Grove Village outside Chicago, was given an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule. She was dead by 7 a.m. Adam Janus, a 27-year-old postal worker, also died. His brother Stanley, 25, died the same day as Adam,
Scots Wikipedia Let Anyone Write the Encyclopedia and Relied on the Community to Check It. For Seven Years the Most Prolific Member of the Community Was an American Teenager Who Did Not Speak Scots.
On 25 August 2020 a Reddit user called Ultach posted to the r/Scotland forum under the title "I've discovered that almost every single article on the Scots version of Wikipedia is written by the same person – an American teenager who can't speak Scots"
Northern Ireland Paid Businesses More per Unit of Renewable Heat Than the Fuel Cost to Make It, With No Limit, for 20 Years. When a Businesswoman Warned Officials in 2013, She Was Told People Would Not Do That.
In 2008 Stormont decided not to join the Renewable Heat Incentive being designed at Westminster and to build its own instead. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), whose minister was the DUP's Arlene Foster, launched the non-domestic scheme in November 2012. It paid businesses a
Microsoft Released a Chatbot Called Tay on Twitter in March 2016 to Learn How Young Americans Talk by Talking to Them. It Shipped With a Command That Made It Repeat Whatever Anyone Told It to Say.
In China, Microsoft had a hit. Its chatbot XiaoIce was, in the words of Peter Lee, then corporate vice president of Microsoft Research, "being used by some 40 million people, delighting with its stories and conversations." The next question followed, as Lee later put it: "Would an
McDonald's Soft-Serve Machines Kept Their Diagnostics Behind a Passcode Left Out of Every Owner's Manual. When a Startup Sold Franchisees a Device That Read Them, McDonald's Warned It Could Cause Serious Human Injury.
The soft-serve machine in most of McDonald's 13,000-plus American restaurants is the Taylor C602, which Taylor sells to franchisees for about $18,000. Rather than being emptied and cleaned every day, it runs a nightly "heat treatment" that raises its contents to 151
In 2012 Tesla Promised Model S Owners Free Long-Distance Travel Indefinitely on Pure Sunlight. By 2023 It Was Offering Free Supercharging on a New Car to Owners Who Agreed to Have the Old Promise Switched Off.
On 24 September 2012, Tesla Motors unveiled its Supercharger network under a press release headed "Drive the Model S electric car anywhere in the country on pure sunlight for free." The arithmetic was presented as simple. Tesla had built the charger itself, cheaply, out of components it already
The Dutch Tax Authority Hardened Its Childcare Benefit Fraud Rules After a Bulgarian Benefits Scam Came to Light in 2013. The New Rules Branded Tens of Thousands of Parents as Fraudsters and Have Cost Over €7 Billion to Undo.
In the Netherlands, childcare benefit was paid in advance. Parents applied, the Belastingdienst's benefits department, Toeslagen, sent the money, and the checking came afterwards. In 2013 it emerged that criminals had been exploiting the order of those steps. According to NOS, they recruited Bulgarians to register in the