Debacle

Following Hertz's disastrous misadventure with EVs, CEO Stephen Scherr is stepping down, Bloomberg reported. He'll be replaced by the former COO of GM's robotaxi Cruise division, Gil West, who will also join the board of directors.A year after emerging from bankruptcy in 2020, Hertz said it would transform its car rental business by purchasing 100,000 Tesla EVs. "The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America," the company said at the time. The…

In last week’s inaugural Swift Notes, I wrote about how in the past year Taylor Swift has been popping up in unexpected places, from crafting to debates about grammar. I was surprised to find her in a recent newsletter from the wonderful songwriter Phil Elverum, AKA Mount Eerie (and previously the Microphones), about his frustrating attempts to be heard in a Washington State government hearing on a bill proposing regulation of the ticketing market. (Sign up here – he writes really beautiful missives.)Ticketing has been an…

It’s the story that has captured the internet’s attention, giving birth to millions of memes: the disastrous “Willy Wonka experience” that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, last month and left children in tears.The exhibit went viral after photos and testimony emerged suggesting a huge gulf between how the experience was marketed (with glitzy, larger-than-life imagery) and the reality (an empty warehouse, offering as snacks just a handful of jelly beans and a half-cup of lemonade).But as much as the Willy Wonka experience…

Just a few days after Google Gemini's inaccuracies while generating AI images came to the fore, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said that the results generated were “completely unacceptable” while also admitting that their AI chatbot got it very wrong. The issue came to light when Gemini users on X shared screenshots of Gemini inaccurately depicting people of colour, while declining to generate images of white people.Gemini image generation controversyThe problems with Gemini began last week as more and more instances…

You know you’ve screwed up when you’ve simultaneously angered the White House, the TIME Person of the Year and pop culture’s most rabid fanbase. That’s what happened last week to X, the Elon Musk-owned platform formerly called Twitter, when AI-generated, pornographic deepfake images of Taylor Swift went viral. One of the most widespread posts of the nonconsensual, explicit deepfakes was viewed more than 45 million times, with hundreds of thousands of likes. That doesn’t even factor in all the accounts that reshared…

Maria Diaz/ZDNETAI image generators have the potential to spur creativity and revolutionize content creation for the better. However, when misused, they can cause real harm through the spread of misinformation and reputational damage. Microsoft is hoping to prevent further misuse of its generative AI tools through implementing new protections. Last week, AI-generated deepfakes sexualizing Taylor Swift went viral on Twitter. The images were reportedly shared via 4chan and a Telegram channel where users share…

The X account belonging to the Securities and Exchange Commission was hacked on Tuesday, allowing a fake announcement to be posted to the web concerning a much-awaited happening in the crypto world: the first Bitcoin ETFs. The announcement claimed the ETFs had been approved but, as it turns out, that’s not true. When it became apparent that the announcement was, indeed, fake, all hell broke loose in the web3 community.He Tossed His Bitcoin, Now He Wants It BackOn X, the tenor of the conversation among crypto denizens was…

The sport coat flew through the air. The screaming coach stomped on the ground.The heat is on at UCLA, and Mick Cronin is slowly dissolving into a powder-blue puddle.The Bruin coach shed his jacket, lost his temper and shouted and pointed at the officials after a questionable foul call late in the first half of a Saturday night game against Cal.The outburst cost his team a technical foul. It cost UCLA a four-point play. It eventually led to a 66-57 defeat to the worst team in the Pac-12.And it was only the beginning of…

In the statement, Optus said the outgoing CEO had delivered improved financial performance and market share gains. Appointed CEO in April 2020, she joined Optus after serving various positions in the banking sector, including Commonwealth Bank. She was listed among the Top 25 Women in Asia Pacific Finance and Top 10 Businesswomen in Australia, and is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering. Hired at the start of the global pandemic, Rosmarin exhibited leadership and commitment through a challenging…

Tesla has officially settled a class-action lawsuit over a steep price hike on its solar roof that even affected signed contracts. Back in March 2021, Tesla added a new “roof complexity” factor to its solar roof prices that resulted in drastically increasing the price of its solar roof. The price of solar roof projects increased between 30% to 150% for some. That’s an incredible price increase in itself, but the strangest part of the situation is that Tesla even applied the new price hike to…