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

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

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

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.

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

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

Discontinued

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

Investigations

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

Revoked

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

Investigations

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

Corporate Memo

Air Canada's Website Chatbot Told a Bereaved Customer to Buy Full-Fare Tickets and Claim the Bereavement Discount Within 90 Days. At the Tribunal, Air Canada Argued the Chatbot Was Responsible for Its Own Actions.

On 11 November 2022, Jake Moffatt's grandmother died in Ontario. The same day, Moffatt went to Air Canada's website to book a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Air Canada, like many airlines, offers reduced bereavement fares to passengers travelling because of a death in the immediate

Recalled

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,

Revoked

The US Mint Shipped Dollar Coins Free to Anyone Who Paid by Credit Card, to Get Americans Spending Them. Frequent Fliers Bought Them by the Box for the Air Miles and Deposited Them at the Bank Still in Their Mint Packaging.

In June 2008 the United States Mint began selling dollar coins to the public at face value. A box of 250 Presidential or Sacagawea dollars cost $250, the Mint paid the shipping, and the buyer could pay by credit card. The purpose was circulation. In 2005 Congress had passed the

Investigations

Australia's Robodebt Assumed Welfare Recipients Were Overpaid Unless They Proved Otherwise and Raised $1.76 Billion in Unlawful Debts. Its Minister Was Cleared Because Ministers Must Be Able to Trust Their Departments.

Australian social security law works by the fortnight. Since July 2010, the income tests that decide how much a recipient of unemployment benefit, student allowance or a disability pension is paid have applied to income calculated on a fortnightly basis, and recipients report their earnings to Centrelink every two weeks.

Policy Updates

Healthy Choice Offered Frequent-Flyer Miles for Every Ten Bar Codes Mailed In During 1999. A Davis Engineer Bought 12,150 Cups of Its Pudding at 25 Cents Each and Had the Salvation Army Peel Off the Labels.

Healthy Choice was born of a cardiac event. In 1988 Mike Harper, chief executive of ConAgra, had a mild heart attack, and his wife persuaded him to eat food with less salt and less fat. The experience, as the trade press later recorded, led ConAgra to introduce the Healthy Choice

Security Theater

Hawaii's Emergency Agency Spent Months Preparing to Warn of an Incoming Ballistic Missile. It Had No Procedure for Saying There Wasn't One.

At 8:07 a.m. on Saturday 13 January 2018, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sent the following message to phones, radios and televisions across the state: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." There was no missile. The Federal Communications

Investigations

Nikola Filmed Its Prototype Truck Rolling Down a Hill in Utah and Said It Had Only Ever Called the Video 'In Motion.' After His Pardon, the Founder Asked the Bankrupt Company for $69.8 Million Toward His Legal Bills.

On or about 1 December 2016, Nikola Corporation unveiled its first semi-truck, the Nikola One, at a large event that was filmed and broadcast online. The company's founder, Trevor Milton, told the audience that the prototype "fully functions and works, which is really incredible." He

Obituaries

Hoover Offered Two Free Return Flights to America to Anyone Who Spent £100 on Its Products. Customers Bought the £119 Vacuum Cleaner to Get Them, and the Promotion Cost Its Owner $72 Million.

In August 1992, Hoover's British operation had a warehouse full of vacuum cleaners and washing machines it could not sell. Its solution, as the BBC later summarised it, was simple: spend £100 on any Hoover product and two free return flights, initially to Europe, could be yours. The