⚠️ Warning: This story contains details about sexual assault that may be disturbing.
I know two women who were raped by an Uber driver. That’s not hearsay or a story I read online. They trusted the ride, believed the app was safe and paid the price in the most horrific way possible.
Now, The New York Times (paywall link) has just uncovered something you need to know: Between 2017 and 2022, Uber got a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes, based on sealed court records, despite the company publicly claiming such incidents were vanishingly rare.
Yes, you read that right, every eight minutes. The court documents show 400,181 trips linked to sexual misconduct in five years. Women are almost always the victims.
They say 99.9% of rides happen without incident. Internally, they studied the demographics and patterns like late-night pickups near bars, intoxicated passengers and low-rated drivers with past complaints.
They even tested tools to make rides safer: pairing women with female drivers, adding in-car cameras and using smarter ride-matching. But they didn’t roll them out widely.
Why not?
Because it might cost too much, slow down growth or upset the way they classify drivers as “independent contractors,” not employees. That saves Uber a fortune in benefits, overtime and supervision, but it also means less oversight and accountability.
Uber’s documents show many attacks follow predictable patterns. They could have warned people. They could have stopped some of these assaults. Instead, they stayed quiet.
You already know your smartphone tracks your every move like a jealous ex. And your car? Duh, it’s been watching you since Bluetooth became a thing.
Here’s the shocker: Researchers at MIT just revealed that your EV battery alone can quietly map your life without GPS, Wi-Fi or cell signals.
📺 Just what we need, more streaming services: First up is Howdy, an ad-free Roku channel for $2.99/month with old shows and movies from Warner Bros., Discovery, Lionsgate and more. The catch? You’ll need a Roku device (25% off). Then on Aug. 21, Fox One drops for $19.99/month with live NFL, MLB and news.
We may earn a commission from purchases, but our recommendations are always objective.
How long since the U.S. opened a rare earth mine. One dusty spot in Wyoming could supply America with rare earths for over 150 years. That’s phones, fighter jets and EVs covered till 2175. China controls 90% of processing right now, so yeah, this is big news for cowboy country. Yeehaw, meet geopolitics.
😭 This made me pause and think: Jim Acosta just interviewed an AI version of Joaquin Oliver, created by the parents of the Parkland shooting victim. It aired on what would’ve been Joaquin’s 25th birthday. The digital Joaquin discussed gun control, movies and grief. His parents emphasized it’s not about resurrection but making sure he’s not silenced again. If you were in their position, could you do this?
That’s all it took for AI to spot a missing hiker’s helmet in 2,600 drone images. After 10 months of silence, a few off-color pixels in a sea of rock cracked the case. Searchers found the hiker’s body the next morning, 600 meters below Monviso Peak. Weeks of human searching, replaced by one machine-powered glance.
As if cops don’t have enough to do: A man told Portland police his car, and 1-year-old, were stolen. Oregon cops pinged an AirTag and found both at a truck stop hours away. The kicker? The “thief” was the kid’s mom. Yup, another AirTag caught in the cross fire of a nasty co-parenting situation.
💸 AT&T might owe you cash: Talk about full bars. Two breaches. 173 million customers. One giant “our bad.” AT&T is settling for $177M and dishing out up to $5,000 per person. If you were a customer anytime this century, go here before the deadline on Nov. 18. Where else can you hear about these things?
How long the world’s oldest baby chilled in a freezer before being born. Frozen in 1994, he’s technically older than Friends, Google and probably your favorite jeans. Science: 1, Nature: confused.
Stay groovy, Old Faithful: Social media’s latest doomsday fantasy? That Yellowstone’s wildlife is fleeing an imminent volcanic eruption. The panic started with a fake post claiming “hundreds” of the park’s ~40 mountain lions were fleeing. Bears “escaping” turned out to be filmed in a drive-thru zoo in South Dakota. Someone posted a herd of wildebeests in Africa. Speaking of… What did the dad say after dropping his son off at Yellowstone National Park? Bison! (lol)
🔴 Red pill teens are rising: “Red pilled” used to mean you saw the truth, like in The Matrix. Now it’s code for online communities where young men vent about women, feminism and dating, often turning hateful, sexist and sometimes racist. It’s becoming a gateway drug for disillusioned boys looking for belonging. Make sure your guys are not partaking.
🧨 The dronepocalypse starts now: New FAA rules (Part 108) will nix those tedious waivers and unlock drone flights over people, at night and out of sight. Great for commercial use like deliveries or for agriculture. Awful for an air traffic control system still running on floppy disks. Also: D.C. just let drones fly in the capital.
Facebook trickery can’t get past us: Meta wants access to your unposted camera roll, via a pop-up that quietly signs you into cloud uploads and AI scanning. They say it’s for fun little collages but don’t specify whether that data’s going into AI training. Go to Facebook > Settings > Your Information > Camera Roll Cloud Processing and switch it off. This also starts deleting anything already uploaded after 30 days.
📦 QR code scam alert: The FBI says scammers are shipping fake “gifts” with QR codes that lure you into handing over personal info, or worse, downloading malware. No sender info, just a data breach waiting to happen. If a box shows up uninvited, don’t scan anything. Just toss it or enjoy your free salad spinner.
What a jury told Tesla to cough up over a fatal Autopilot crash. That includes $200M in punitive damages, aka “don’t do that again” money. The crash killed a young woman and injured her boyfriend. Autopilot was engaged, the driver was distracted, and the jury decided both were to blame, not equally.
Stream your own drama: Fable Studio just got Amazon funding for Showrunner, an AI platform where you can script shows, insert yourself into episodes and get paid if others build on your story. It’s $10 to $40/month and launching publicly this week. Your next group chat meme could be a full TV episode.
🚗 Shock and vroom: Ford says it’s cooking up an EV so revolutionary, it’ll make the original Model T look like a horse and buggy. On Aug. 11, CEO Jim Farley promises to show off a sub-$25K electric car that’s built to scale, fast, cheap and U.S.-powered.
⚡ Solar hacker warning: Turns out smart inverters in home solar panels can be hacked. If attackers exploit hardware bugs or trick people into granting app access, they could disrupt entire power grids and trigger blackouts. The kicker? These inverters last over 15 years, so even good security now might not hold up later.
🫠 Your AI chat’s in the wild: That chat convo you shared with a friend? It might be on Google now. Really. If you hit “Share” on a ChatGPT chat, it’s public and searchable. Thousands of personal exchanges, including trauma dumps and mental health stuff, are popping up in search results. Yikes.
That’s Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth. The real flex? He says he’s made more billionaires on his management team than any other CEO. He personally reviews pay for all 42,000 employees and gives out raises every year. Nice, right? Well, only if they survive. An ex-employee had to attend seven to 10 meetings a day.
