Over the holiday weekend, tens of thousand of travelers planning to hop their way around Europe were met with some unplanned delays after a systems outage caused British Airways’ operations to come to a screeching halt. Turns out the hundreds of canceled flights were the result of someone simply inadvertently switching off a power supply. [More]
human error
Self-Driving Ubers Run Red Lights In San Francisco; Company Blames Humans
By 12.15.16
You know those self-driving SUVs that Uber has unleashed on San Francisco? The ones that the state of California says are illegal and wants off the roads, since the company didn’t seek approval yet? Yesterday, others on the roads noticed one of the vehicles running a red light, which Uber blames on the car’s human operator. [More]
Self-Driving Car Involved In Crash… After Driver Takes Control
By 1.22.16
Given Google’s recent confession that its self-driving cars would have been involved in 13 crashes if a human hadn’t intervened, you’d assume that having a real driver in an autonomous car could only help. Then you remember that millions of humans crash their vehicles every day, regardless of how intelligent that car is. [More]
General Mills Recalls 1.8M Boxes Of Cheerios, Because Gluten-Free Cereal Shouldn’t Include Wheat
By 10.6.15
Just months after General Mills revamped its Cheerios brand, introducing several gluten-free varieties, the company has recalled 1.8 million boxes of supposedly gluten-free Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios because the breakfast food might contain wheat — an ingredient that is decidedly not free of gluten. [More]
Same Crew Demolished Wrong House Two Days In A Row
By 8.23.13
Everyone makes some mistakes at work sometimes. Usually, though, someone else catches the error before something catastrophic happens. That wasn’t the case in Fort Worth, Texas, where the crews hired to demolish condemned buildings knocked down the wrong one. Worse: they did it again the following day. [More]
Get A Palm Pre For Only $99 At Best Buy…No, Wait, Never Mind
By 7.28.09
For a brief, shining moment, in-store ads at Best Buy stores advertised a Palm Pre for $99 with a new two-year Sprint contract. Potential Pre customers were stoked. Recent Pre purchasers were incensed. And today, Best Buy was scrambling to fix the situation, since the price drop was really due to an error in the system. Oops.
New Jersey: Sorry, We Mailed Your SSN To Some Random Companies
By 5.19.09
Oh, human error. New Jersey has announced that an unknown number of unemployed residents had their personal information shared with companies they never worked for.
"Apple Just Gave Out My Apple ID Password Because Someone Asked"
By 7.8.08
All the security in the world can be rendered useless by human error, it seems. Marko Karppinen, a software designer, says Apple gave his password to someone who simply emailed them and asked for it.
