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On every EV Ford sold this year. Their EV division has lost $2.5 billion so far in 2024, and they’re not alone; U.S. automakers are losing an average of $6,000 for every EV sold.
Tags: automakers/carmakers, Ford, lost, U.S
🔥 You are so bot: On OnlyFans, the subscription service where folks interact with their favorite sex workers, creators are using AI chatbots to handle replies and form connections before asking for that oh-so-special tip. OnlyFans doesn’t seem to care if this is against their terms of service. They take a 20% cut of their creators’ incomes, and they made $1.1 billion in revenue in 2022. Yeah, that number seems old to me, too, but it’s the last number I could find.
Meta-morphosis: Meta’s AI Studio for Instagram lets you create an AI version of yourself. The AI “you” can chat with followers on Instagram, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. It’s free to use at ai.meta.com/ai-studio or in the IG app. I’ll hold off on creating an AI Kim.
“Magical teleprompter”: That’s how startup Final Round AI markets its Interview Copilot app for job seekers. Their tech listens in while you complete a job interview from home and feeds you the perfect answers on screen in real time. Whether or not you think it’s “cheating,” the person interviewing for the job you want might be using it.
📝 Writing checks is dead: The average American writes just one check per year. Get ready for instant payments, where money transfers with zero delays and no charge — different from wire transfers, ACH and apps like PayPal. Last year, instant payments made up only 1.5% of all payments in the U.S., compared to 84% in India.
⚠️ Talk to your kids: A 16-year-old girl faked her birthdate to sign up for Tinder and matched with a 34-year-old man. The two met up, and then he drugged her and broadcast sex acts to thousands of people on an adult website. She told her therapist, who called the police. These dating apps must find better ways to verify the user’s age.
🧈 This gold scam panned out: A 74-year-old Maryland man bought gold bars with his life savings and handed them over to a fraudster to “protect his bank account.” After, he saw a story on the local news about a woman losing $1 million dollars to this same scam. He contacted the police, who set up a trap and arrested the scammer. Unfortunately, the gold was long gone.
Another health care data breach: This time, it’s HealthEquity, a tech company that runs health savings accounts. Criminals got their hands on 4.3 million people’s names, numbers, addresses and payment info. What’s strange, though, is that no malware was spotted during the investigation, and there’s been no ransom demand yet.
🏎️ A Ferrari exec slammed the brakes: A Ferrari C-level exec got a text from his CEO, who wanted to chat on WhatsApp. They were texting about possible mergers when the CEO said, “Let’s talk.” And they did. The C-level exec said it was someone posing as the CEO (paywall link). He tested the caller, asking for the name of a book the actual CEO had recommended the exec read the week before. Surprise, the scammer hung up.
This doesn’t make cents: Honda, Hyundai and GM sold driving data for pennies. A letter to the FTC revealed data broker Verisk paid Honda 26 cents per car and Hyundai 61 cents per car. The info was then sold again to auto insurers. Hello, higher premiums. Opt out by going into your infotainment system’s Settings and looking for Data Privacy or Data Usage.
