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On a day when a large share of Americans seek to recover from Thanksgiving excess, Elon Musk effectively ordered his employees back to their posts in Hawthorne, California, in order to address a “disaster” related to the spaceflight company’s new rocketship engine. According to the email sent to SpaceX employees on Black Friday — obtained by the Verge — the company faces a “genuine risk of bankrup...

Tesla’s Cybertruck is hard to forget. In late 2019, Elon Musk took the stage to unveil his company’s latest design, a futuristic, boxy EV truck described by observers as a “ large metallic trapezoid .” In a now infamous demo of how “breakproof” the Cybertruck’s windows were, an engineer threw a metal ball at the glass, which Musk had described as bulletproof, causing it to unexpectedly shatter. Bu...

Paint industry insiders are saying the problem is causing “complete chaos” as supply chain challenges intensify and reports emerge that the world is running out of the color blue. You heard that right. According to Bloomberg , Dutch paint company Akzo Nobel NV reports they’re running out of the ingredients to make several shades of blue paint and the color tint has become “extremely difficult to g...

In the seven years since Tesla first debuted the advanced driver-assist technology known as Autopilot, the system has made headlines over everything from ill-advised driver behavior to deadly crashes. In the U.S., federal highway regulators just weeks ago opened an investigation of Autopilot after a series of crashes involving Teslas and emergency vehicles parked on roadsides. Other nations, of co...

Swedish startup Jetson Aero is joining the personal aircraft game. Its electric VTOL is called Jetson One and the users can assemble it themselves. It is also classified as an ultralight, which means owners do not need a pilot license to fly it.  This creation allows Jetson to act on its goal from its website which reads, “We intend to make everyone a pilot.” If it comforts those uneasy about unli...

Another day, another story about pandemic relief fund fraud… except this one has a unique twist. A Georgia man has been accused of fraudulently obtaining $85,000 in relief funds for an unnamed business that prosecutors say he misrepresented -- inflating its size and number of employees in his application. You can guess then, probably, that the man -- Vinath Oudomsine  -- didn’t use the money as in...

A computer vision startup claims it has the solution to improving fast-food worker performance. The startup, Agot AI, comes from Pittsburgh and its plan involves the installation of cameras in fast food kitchens.  The monitoring can be used to correct mistakes in preparing orders. CEO Evan DeSantola gave the example of an employee who forgets an ingredient. The technology would notice the error an...

Charles Munger isn’t as well-known as Warren Buffett, for whom he has long served as right-hand man at the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. But the 97-year-old, like the Oracle of Omaha, is a Nebraska native, a billionaire in his own right, and a prodigious philanthropist. He is also, apparently, something of an amateur architect. And his hobby and his financial largesse have combined to spark con...

Last week, Kellogg Co. was hit with a $5 million lawsuit for "false, misleading and deceptive" marketing. The lawsuit alleged that Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts don't have strawberries in them even though the product's ingredients list says the popular pastries contain "2% or less of dried strawberries, dried pears and dried apples.” Although food labeling lawsuits are hot...

The name Ryanair may not be as familiar to Americans, but in Europe, the budget-friendly airline carried more passengers than any competitor in 2020. And they carried them on Boeing planes. That’s because Ryanair has long maintained a fleet that’s solely supplied by Boeing in order to streamline operations. By using only variations of the 737 model, Ryanair says its able to move pilots seamlessly...

Cracks have been spotted on the International Space Station, and while it isn’t cause for immediate concern, retired NASA astronaut and current member of NASA’s ISS Advisory Committee Bill Shepherd described it as a “fairly serious issue.” NASA told Business Insider the cracks do not threaten the safety of astronauts at this time and no new potential leak sites were found. The cracks were found by...

Facilities managers and safety and security personnel try to have a plan for everything, but sometimes, all it takes is a lonely lover to play the wild card. Last week, a woman in Maine called in a pair of bomb threats at Puritan Medical Products. The calls prompted the evacuation of two manufacturing plants. When asked why she did it, authorities said it was to spend more time with her boyfriend,...

The billionaire race to space has provided a list of fascinating headlines. The most recent escapade, which involved Elon Musk’s SpaceX launching the Inspiration4 mission into orbit, added a rather unsanitary headline to the list. No professional astronauts rode with the Inspiration4 crew, leaving the amateurs to solve any issues that arose on their own. They did, however, have communications with...

The auto industry’s vehicle shortage has hit a new level of weird, according to a recent report by Ford Authority, who claims the Blue Oval is cracking down on a new and deceptive practice by its own dealers. The report claims that Ford is dealing with another problem with its new Bronco, the much anticipated vehicle reprise that’s been mired in problems ranging from quality issues to pricing snaf...

In 10 to 20 years, Honda wants its business to offer more than automobiles, motorcycles and power equipment. A part of its “ 2030 Vision ,” the company from Tokyo is looking to the sky and to robots and sees these advancements being offered by the 2030s and 40s.  The first is air taxis. This would build on HondaJet , which was founded in 2006 and features business jets.  Bloomberg reports that Hon...

Two weeks ago, an elite team completed the first successful free-flight test of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile. Raytheon Missiles & Defense worked with Northrop Grumman to build the prototype for DARPA. For the test, the HAWC was released from underneath the wing of an aircraft. Seconds after it deployed, the missile's solid rocket motor boosted it to supersoni...

A crafty Amazon shopper developed a scheme to make some money off the multinational conglomerate. The plot involved Hudson Hamrick, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, who purchased expensive items through Amazon and then initiated returns.  One problem, the items Hamrick sent back to Amazon were not the items he bought. Instead, Hamrick sent back similar, cheaper items as the returns. On occas...

Last month, the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma erupted for the first time in 50 years, sending ash and lava billowing into the sky in often-spectacular fashion. More than three weeks later, the volcano is still going strong: a new river of lava began after part of the volcano’s cone collapsed over the weekend, and another eruption was reported by local volcanologists on Mon...

Last month , the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) took a hypersonic missile prototype built by Raytheon Missiles & Defense and Northrop Grumman and completed a successful free-flight test. This test involved a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile. The HAWC’s engine got it to as fast as five times the speed of sound, about 3,853 miles per hour. It was a monume...

When an employer and an employee part ways, it’s not always on the best of terms. But in most cases, the departed worker moves on with their life. In most cases. But in others, an ex-worker can feel wronged to the point where they are looking to exact revenge. A 26-year-old Florida woman has been accused of hacking into the systems at her former workplace, the Melbourne Flight Training School. Acc...

Since the beginning of the year, the global auto industry has been plagued by a lingering shortage of semiconductors that stems all the way to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis is impacting the entire supply chain, from the world’s most well-known car brands down to the lesser-known manufacturers that make their components. One of the latter companies, evidently, is tired of being...

In a report released in late August, OSHA informed meatpacking giant JBS USA that it was levying fines of $175,000 against the company after an employee at its beef factory in Greeley, CO had an arm amputated by a conveyor belt. The OSHA report , sent to JBS on Aug. 17, details five safety violations at the factory, which does business as Swift Beef Company. It states that during the end of a shif...

The U.S. aerospace sector is warning that it could face further supply chain and manufacturing problems if the federal government doesn’t step up its regulatory review process soon. At issue, Reuters reports , are new soot emissions standards for aircraft engines. The rules aren’t scheduled to take effect until 2023, but industry group the U.S. Aerospace Industries Association warned that its memb...

Tesla’s long reign as the leader in electric vehicle driving range is officially over. The Environmental Protection Agency this week certified that a new sedan from startup EV maker Lucid Motors can travel 520 miles per charge. It’s the first time that the agency determined that an all-battery vehicle has eclipsed the 500-mile range mark, and it bests the top offering from Tesla by more than 100 m...

In May, a gun maker in the Czech Republic bought Colt Holding Company for $222 million. The company, Ceska Zbrojovka Group, hopes the acquisition and the Colt brand name will provide a better position in the firearms market around the world — and even contend for some U.S. military contracts. CZG not only bought the Colt name; the deal came with factories in the U.S. and Canada. Until recently, th...