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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
Twitter Spent Thirteen Years Using a Blue Check to Confirm Accounts Were Who They Said They Were. The Day After It Started Selling the Check for $8 a Month, a Verified Eli Lilly Announced That Insulin Was Free.
Twitter introduced its "verified" badge in 2009. For the next thirteen years a small blue check beside a name meant that the company had satisfied itself the account belonged to the person or organisation it claimed to be. In the Boston Globe's summary, it went to
California Paid Pandemic Unemployment Claims Without Checking Them Against Prison Records and Sent About $810 Million to Inmates. It Then Suspended 1.4 Million Claims Until the Claimants Could Prove Who They Were.
In February 2020 California's unemployment rate was 4.3 percent. By April it was 16.2 percent, and the Employment Development Department, which runs the state's unemployment insurance programme, received nearly 2.4 million claims that month, about 13 times as many as in April 2019.
Britain Paid Restaurants to Discount 160 Million Meals in August 2020 to Get People Eating Indoors Together Again. Nobody Asked the Chief Medical Officer, Who Called It Eat Out to Help Out the Virus.
On 8 July 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented his Plan for Jobs to Cabinet and announced it to the public the same day. Among its measures was a scheme with a name built for a slogan. Throughout August, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, anyone eating in
Sony BMG Sold 2.1 Million Music CDs That Quietly Installed a Rootkit to Stop Buyers Copying Them. The Copy-Protection Software Appeared to Contain Open-Source Code Copied Without Honouring Its Licence.
On 30 September 2005, John Guarino, who ran a two-man computer repair shop in Manhattan called TecAngels, found a set of oddly named files hidden on his own PC. He had been finding the same files on customers' machines for weeks. His antivirus software did not flag them,
Smart Home Company Insteon Switched Off Its Servers Without Telling Customers in April 2022. Its Status Page Kept Reporting "All Services Online" While Its Chief Executive Shortened His LinkedIn Name to "R. Li."
Insteon made light switches, plugs, thermostats, sensors and keypads that talked to each other over a proprietary "dual-mesh" protocol, half radio and half household wiring, and to the internet through the Insteon Hub. The hub was what made the app work, along with schedules, remote control and
Knight Capital Lost $460 Million in 45 Minutes After a Software Update Reached Seven of Its Eight Servers. The Code Still Running on the Eighth Had Not Been Used Since 2003.
On 1 August 2012, the New York Stock Exchange launched its Retail Liquidity Program, a new way of handling small orders from ordinary investors. Knight Capital Americas, a broker-dealer in Jersey City, wanted its customers to be able to take part. Knight was not a small participant. According to
The FTC Fined Vizio $2.2 Million in 2017 for Tracking 11 Million Smart TVs Without Consent. The Remedy Was a Consent Screen, and a Peer-Reviewed Study Later Found LG Sets Fingerprinting Whatever Is on Screen Every Fifteen Seconds.
In February 2017, Vizio agreed to pay $2.2 million to the Federal Trade Commission and the New Jersey Attorney General to settle charges that it had collected viewing data from roughly 11 million televisions without telling anyone. The software had been running since February 2014. It recorded what was
Boeing's Quality Manager Spent Years Warning That Sub-Standard Parts Were Slipping Onto 787s Unchecked. He Died Alone in a Parking Lot Mid-Deposition Against the Company, and the Case Closed Within Months.
For 32 years, John Barnett worked the assembly lines that built America's commercial airliners, first on the 747, 767, and 777 programs in Everett, Washington, then from 2010 to 2017 as a quality manager at Boeing's 787 Dreamliner plant in North Charleston, South Carolina. In 2017
Netflix Spent Six Years Telling Customers Love Is Sharing a Password. Once It Started Charging $7.99 a Month Per Shared Password Instead, Subscriber Growth Hit Its Best Year Since the Pandemic.
On March 10, 2017, Netflix's official Twitter account posted four words that would follow the company around for the next six years: "Love is sharing a password." It was a promo tweet for a show called Love, but it was also, unmistakably, a policy statement — an