Tesla is planning to install dozens of Supercharger sites at Steak ‘n Shake locations across the country, according to an exchange between the companies on X. The companies have signed an agreement for over six sites, with over 20 more to come. And if Steak ‘n Shake gets its way, possibly 100 restaurants will see future Supercharger installations.
The way the news trickled out was a little weird, yet typical of how Elon Musk likes to use his social media platform, X, to publicize new information about his various companies.
Musk, a major Trump supporter who is fronting the DOGE-led effort to overhaul the federal bureaucracy, replied to the post that “the fries taste way better!” Steak ’n Shake responded by thanking him and asking whether Tesla planned on installing charging stations at its restaurants. To which Tesla’s Supercharger account replied:
6 sites signed already, 20+ sites in design review
Steak ‘n Shake responded again, suggesting 100 locations could serve as Supercharger sites.
Tesla has formed partnerships with restaurant and convenience store chains in the past, including Ruby Tuesday and Sheetz. The company is also currently building its own 1950s-style diner and drive-in movie theater, with over 30 charging stalls.
Tesla likely won’t be able to rely on federal funding for any new charging locations, after the Trump administration halted a $5 billion federal program to install new EV chargers. Tesla has received $31 million in funds from the program to install 539 DC fast-charging ports, which represents 6 percent of all funds distributed so far, according to a dashboard that tracks the spending.
Tina Nguyen is joining The Verge as a senior reporter, covering the Trump administration, Elon Muskâs takeover of the federal government, and the tech industryâs embrace of the MAGA movement. Nguyen joins The Verge from Puck, where she was a founding partner and national correspondent covering the evolution of the MAGA political ecosystem. Before that, Nguyen was a White House reporter for Politico and covered politics and media at Vanity Fair. She is the author of The MAGA Diaries: Life Among the Fanatics, Extremists, and True Believers that Created the Modern Right. She starts at The Verge this week.
âTina is deeply sourced in the world of MAGA politics and has extensively explored how Trump and his movement use the power of modern tech and social media,â says Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief at The Verge. âThatâs always been a Verge story, and it will only get more important as the tech giants work to curry favor and protection from an administration that is always and forever posting through it.â
âWhat I’ve observed over the past decade, and what the second Trump administration understands innately, is that technology and data is the river through which cultural …
Cold Wallet, Well Go USAâs new darkly comedic home invasion thriller from director Cutter Hodierne, becomes increasingly more absurd as it unfolds. At every turn, the movieâs heroes â a group of excitable retail investors â make unhinged choices that make them feel more like cartoons than people who have complex lives outside of Reddit. But in the filmâs story about how quickly big bets on crypto can go left, you can feel Cold Wallet tapping into something very real about what makes people believe that rugs can never be pulled from beneath their feet.
Cold Wallet tells the tale of Billy (Raúl Castillo), a down-on-his-luck father, who, after a nasty separation from his ex, decides to bet everything he has on a hot, new crypto coin called Tulip. Like his twitchy hacker friend Eva (Melonie Diaz) and MMA-obsessed buddy Dom (Tony Cavalero), Billy sees Tulip as an opportunity to radically change his lot in life. Itâs easy for the trio to pour their money into Tulip because they genuinely believe that the coinâs creator, Charles Hegel (Josh Brener), wants to make the world a better place for people like them. But when Tulipâs value suddenly tanks one day and Hegel â a …
It’s wild that Apple hasn’t released official Severance merchandise at this point, but the fan community is filling that role with a case that turns your Nest Mini into Lumon’s Board speaker.
Amnesty International said that Google fixed previously unknown flaws in Android that allowed authorities to unlock phones using forensic tools. On Friday, Amnesty International published a report detailing a chain of three zero-day vulnerabilities developed by phone-unlocking company Cellebrite, which its researchers found after investigating the hack of a student protester’s phone in Serbia. The […]
Google is giving Sheets a Gemini-powered upgrade that is designed to help users analyze data faster and turn spreadsheets into charts using AI. With this update, users can access Gemini’s capabilities to generate insights from their data, such as correlations, trends, outliers, and more. Users now can also generate advanced visualizations, like heatmaps, that they […]
Instagram alternative Flashes publicly launched its Bluesky-based photo-sharing app on the App Store this week, gaining nearly 30,000 downloads in its first 24 hours. The app offers a classic Instagram-like experience, allowing users to upload up to four photos and videos of up to a minute in length. Built by Berlin-based developer Sebastian Vogelsang, Flashes […]
Earlier this week, MSNBC announced a programming shakeup of its weekday and weekend schedules set to take effect in April. These on-air changes, which were accompanied by layoffs, come as the network is on the hunt for new office, production, and studio space. Both MSNBC and CNBC are set to separate from the NBCUniversal News...
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is planning to fire the “vast majority” of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), agency employees — some using pseudonyms for fear of retaliation — told a federal court in sworn declarations.
Seven current and five former CFPB employees submitted the declarations as part of the National Treasury Employees Union case against Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, who’s currently serving as the acting director of the CFPB. The union is seeking to halt the already in-progress dismantling of the financial services watchdog, which fields thousands of consumer complaints each week about financial products, and as of 2023, had returned $17.5 billion to consumers over 12 years through things like monetary compensation and canceled debts. Earlier this month,The Verge reported that roughly 20 technologists at the agency were suddenly fired on a weeknight, amid a broader swath of layoffs. The court has temporarily barred the CFPB from making further cuts.
Four of the seven current employees declined to provide their names publicly but offered to identify themselves to the court under seal. In the declarations, provided under penalty of perjury, the employees described a hasty firing process orchestrated by DOGE, with cursory thought as to who would handle consumer protection issues and CFPB data once the agency was gutted. The stop-work order at the agency has prevented staffers from even conducting necessary work “to maintain the security and stability of the CFPB’s computer systems,” according to one of the declarations.
One current employee, using the pseudonym Alex Doe, says that, around February 13th, their team “was directed to assist with terminating the vast majority of CFPB employees as quickly as possible.” Alex Doe described a three-phase approach: first, firing probationary employees who are newer to the agency; second, firing “approximately 1,200 additional employees, by eliminating whole offices, divisions, and units”; and third, terminating most of the remaining employees within 60-90 days, “leaving a Bureau that could not actually perform any functions, or no Bureau at all.”
The speed of the recent layoffs necessitated “bypassing several ordinary procedures, safeguards, and rules”
The CFPB is responsible for ensuring that companies offering financial services are not misleading consumers or skirting the law. Consumers could submit complaints to the agency about credit cards and loans, and the agency could also initiate enforcement actions and rulemakings, like the one it previously finalized to monitor large digital payment providers as it does banks.
The speed of the recent layoffs necessitated “bypassing several ordinary procedures, safeguards, and rules,” according to Alex Doe, who says that the timeline of the terminations was specifically dictated by DOGE employee Jordan Wick. Only a court order that temporarily prevented further firings stopped the remaining terminations from going through on Valentine’s Day, they add. The CFPB and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a meeting after the court order, CFPB chief operating officer Adam Martinez told staff that “he did not yet know what agency would perform a similar role for the CFPB or whether the Bureau itself would technically continue to exist with a small staff to perform those functions,” according to Alex Doe.
A second current employee, using the pseudonym Blake Doe, disputes Martinez’s declaration to the court that consumers who would have been served by the CFPB’s now-eliminated Student Loan Ombudsman could just turn to the agency’s general Ombudsman office. “That is not possible, however, because the employees of the general Ombudsman Office have been ordered not to perform any work,” writes Blake Doe. Contrary to Martinez’s declaration, Blake Doe says they’ve seen evidence that the CFPB was in communication with the Federal Reserve about how to return money there or to the Treasury.
“The hasty termination of almost all of the Bureau’s contracts resulted in systems and services being turned off before CFPB or contract personnel returned CFPB data.”
Other declarations raise issues about DOGE staffers’ privacy and security training to handle CFPB systems and concerns about where agency data — which could include HR and reasonable accommodation records — might end up.
A CFPB contracting officer going by the name of Charlie Doe says that contract termination notices they saw did not include the usual data preservation notices to ensure CFPB data is not lost. Between February 11th and 14th, the agency issued termination notices for over a hundred contracts, Charlie Doe says, including ones that maintain the consumer complaint database and ensure it’s scrubbed of personally identifiable information, ignoring feedback from employees about which contracts were necessary to keep to follow the law.
“The hasty termination of almost all of the Bureau’s contracts resulted in systems and services being turned off before CFPB or contract personnel returned CFPB data,” a fourth employee, Drew Doe, writes. “Because not all systems have off-line backups, some of the CFPB’s data may have been deleted. Among other things, this data may include CFPB Human Resource records, Reasonable Accommodation records, Ombudsman records, and Equal Employment Opportunity records. The data may not be recoverable and as of February 25th, CFPB is trying to now figure out which systems and services have records.”
Some of the seemingly hasty work is apparently deliberate. CFPB director of digital services Adam Scott submitted an email exchange he was copied on to the court, in which the agency’s chief information officer, Christopher Chilbert, told an employee that it was his understanding that the CFPB’s deleted homepage was a decision made by Vought, “and it was not an error made by the members of the DOGE team.”
Drew Doe claims that DOGE staffers “were given full privileged access to CFPB systems and data, without following the process that the CFPB ordinarily requires to do so,” including signing documents about the governance of CFPB systems and data. In meetings over the past couple of weeks, they add, senior executives told agency staff “that the CFPB would exist in name only.”
Steam Next Fest is going on until March 3rd, and Iâve spent a considerable amount of time wading through a seemingly endless carousel of games, filling up my Steam Deckâs internal and external memory looking for the Good Shitâ¢. Iâve landed on four standout game demos that are worth your time now and whenever their full games release.
The Talos Principle Reawakened
The best way to describe The Talos Principle: Reawakenedis if Portal was harder, less funny, and written by C.S. Lewis if he knew what a robot was. Reawakened is a remaster of 2014âs The Talos Principle. But according to the developers at Croteam, Reawakened doesnât just take the original and slap on a next-gen coat of paint; it also adds new story content and a new puzzle editor so players can create their own challenges.Â
Reawakened strikes the perfect difficulty balance â not too simple, not too frustrating â that makes its puzzles delightful to figure out. In the demo, you play as a robot tasked with solving puzzles using lasers, signal jammers, and your own burgeoning sentience. The game gives you no tutorial on how exactly to use the tools youâre given. And while that can be annoying if t …
Mozilla introduced its first Terms of Use for Firefox this week, but the company has already had to post an update to address criticisms of language that appeared to give Mozilla overly broad ownership over user data.
Specifically, some users took issue with this line in the terms, as reported by TechCrunch: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.”
In response, Mozilla added this update to its blog post. “We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible,” Mozilla says. “Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example.
The company adds that “it does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.” (In the Privacy Notice, Mozilla spells out how it uses your data for things like the core functionality of Firefox and its features, as well as how to adjust what data you provide.)
To TechCrunch, Mozilla shared its reasoning over some of the language in the terms:
Mozilla also further clarified why it used certain terms, saying that the term “nonexclusive” was used to indicate that Mozilla doesn’t want an exclusive license to user data, because users should be able to do other things with that data, too.
“Royalty-free” was used because Firefox is free and neither Mozilla nor the user should owe each other money in exchange for handling the data in order to provide the browser. And “worldwide” was used because Firefox is available worldwide and provides access to the global internet.
Mozilla spokesperson Kenya Friend-Daniel also told TechCrunch that “these changes are not driven by a desire by Mozilla to use people’s data for AI or sell it to advertisers. As it says in the Terms of Use, we ask for permission from the user to use their data to operate Firefox ‘as you indicate with your use of Firefox.’ This means that our ability to use data is still limited by what we disclose in the Privacy Notice.”
In its original blog post, Mozilla said that “some optional Firefox features or services may require us to collect additional data to make them work, and when they do, your privacy remains our priority.” The company added that “we intend to be clear about what data we collect and how we use it.”
Friday afternoon’s roundup of Google Play deals for your Android devices are now ready to go down below. On your way down be sure to scope out the ongoing offers on the new S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra as well as our roundup of the best cases for them, and then dive into the deals we have today on ASUS’ latest Chromebook Plus Expertbook CX54, Google’s white Nest WiFi Pro router, and the current-gen Bose QuietComfort ANC headphones. As for the apps, highlights include titles like Dungeons of Dreadrock 2, Candy Disaster, ARIDA: Backland’s Awakening, Boxville, and more. Head below for a closer look.
eufy cameras have long been some of the best options for outdoor HomeKit cameras. I had the original model of the in my old house, and I loved them. They were a breeze to install, and the battery life was fantastic. They worked great with HomeKit Secure Video, but they also worked great as HomeKit motion sensors and recording back to the eufy base station. Overall, I had zero complaints. I recently picked up the eufy E30, and it’s a fantastic HomeKit camera if you’re looking for an indoor camera that supports HomeKit Secure Video.
Intel announced that it's further delaying plans to open two chip fabrication facilities in Ohio, pushing their completion out to 2030. The company originally announced its plans for Ohio in 2022, with an ambitious opening set for 2025.
Intel says it completed the "basement" level of its Ohio One project last quarter, which allows above-ground construction to get underway now. The $20 billion dollar project is technically split across two different chip fabs, dubbed Mod 1 and Mod 2, which won't be completed at the same time. Mod 1 is now set to open in 2030, to "align the start of production of our fabs with the needs of our business and broader market demand," according to Intel. Mod 2 will be completed the following year in 2031.
Intel Corporation
The justification is financial: Intel says it's taking a "prudent approach" that will ensure the chip fabs are completed in a "financially responsible manner." Intel previously told the state of Ohio that it was delaying the fabs until 2027. It also delayed the groundbreaking of the project seemingly to incentivize the passing of the CHIPS Act in 2022, according to a report from The Washington Post.
More delays add to what's been a tumultuous period for Intel as a company. In December, former CEO Pat Gelsinger was pushed out, likely because he wasn't pulling-off Intel's aggressive plans to expand chip production. Prior to that, the funding the company was set to receive through the CHIPS Act was reduced by $600 million. Add in layoffs and the continued dominance of chip makers like AMD, and Intel remains in a tricky spot.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/intel-once-again-delays-its-long-awaited-ohio-chip-fabrication-facilities-185516274.html?src=rss
A man walks past the Intel logo at its booth during the first China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing, China November 28, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo
NBC News Group is planning to launch a video-centric subscription product in the fourth quarter, according to NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde. The forthcoming platform, which Conde mentioned on stage at Semafor's Innovating to Restore Trust in News Summit on Feb. 27, does not have a name or price point. But it will be...
Electric vehicle charging network EVgo changed its terms of service Thursday to include new language explicitly prohibiting the use of high-speed DC extension cables and breakaway adapters at the company’s stations. The terms, which go into effect March 8th, are another bump in the road for enterprising companies looking to cash in on EV charging accessories.
EVgo added the following terms in bold to the Authorized Charging Adapters section of its Terms of Service: “EVgo prohibits the use of all other adapters, including break-away adapters and DC extension cords (“Unauthorized Equipment”) on EVgo’s network and Charging Stations.” The company continues to authorize “automaker-manufactured charging adapters” (such as J3400 “NACS” to CCS1) and have UL2252 certification.
Another bump in the road for enterprising companies looking to cash in on EV charging accessories
Tesla’s Terms of Use for its Superchargers similarly prohibit any adapter not “sold or provided by Tesla or by other automakers,” without specifically calling out specific types.
EV accessory maker A2Z EV recently put up for preorder its $248 6ft-plus DC extension cord that lets you plug an EV into a short-corded fast-charging station. EV owners may want this to charge their non-Teslas at Tesla Superchargers using supported NACS adapters without blocking out multiple charging stalls. Superchargers are known for their short cords that can’t reach around to varying port locations on different EV makes. Some early testing by YouTube channel State of Charge shows the extension cable working without overheating.
Last year, a startup called EVject built a breakaway adapter designed to let you drive away from a Tesla Supercharger (or other station) without getting out of your car in case of a dangerous situation. However, Tesla sued the company after the automaker’s testing found that the adapter could overheat. Tesla eventually dropped the case later in the year, and EVject maintains that its product is safe.
However, should other competing EV accessory makers decide to make cheaper versions of extension cables and breakaway adapters for people to buy, it may not work as safely. And if both EVgo and Tesla networks are saying no to these accessories, then others might join — which means companies like A2Z EV and EVject might have a tough time selling their solutions.
