Ford said today that its next-generation electric vehicle - recently dubbed Fathom - will go into production at the automaker's recently overhauled Louisville Assembly Plant in the first quarter of 2027.
The first Fathoms will be prototypes, with Ford's team in Louisville already in the production-level pre-tooling phase at the recently converted facility. Factory workers are working alongside team's at Ford's New Model Product Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan, hand-building the Fathom prototypes - and the same operators who helped design the high-stakes EV will also be involved in its production.
Researchers at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon ran a test to measure how often chatbots flatter users. In a paper on social sycophancy in AI advice, they ran OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, DeepSeek, Qwen, and Mistral through thousands of personal dilemmas. — Read the rest
On February 10, 1355, two Oxford students named Walter de Spryngeheuse and Roger de Chesterfield complained about the wine at the Swindlestock Tavern. The vintner, John de Croydon, dismissed the complaint. One of the students threw his drink in de Croydon's face, and by one account beat him with the quart pot. — Read the rest
1999 A.D. is a short film the appliance maker Philco-Ford made in 1967 to show what family life would look like at the end of the century. It opens with a boy named Jamie, who builds a sandcastle version of his family's house on a Southern California beach. — Read the rest
Ford is rolling out a new AI-powered assistant that can answer questions about your Ford or Lincoln vehicle, such as how much fuel you'll need for your next road trip or whether your truck can tow that new motor boat.
The app is rolling out first to the Ford and Lincoln mobile apps, where it will work as a chatbot that can answer questions about the vehicle's capabilities or future service needs. Since the app is linked to the customer's vehicle, the assistant knows many of the details about the particular make and model, including fuel levels, cargo capacity, and towing capabilities. Ford plans on rolling out a voice-powered assistant that …
White drugs. Underage drinking. Absentee parents. Nonstop parties. Oh, to be a rich teenager in the 1980s, says “The Shards” in so many words. Too many, I’d say, but slapping droning voiceovers atop expository visuals isn’t for me. Piling too much on too much is both Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis’ signature, however, as seen in this TV collaboration between auteur and author.
“The Shards,” an adaptation of Ellis’ 2023 autobiographical novel, rewinds to his pre-“Less Than Zero” adolescence, when he was just Bret (Igby Rigney), a high school senior in lockstep with his hedonistic friends. When they aren’t snorting narcotics, everyone but Bret ignores evidence that a serial killer is circling ever closer.
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Ellis’ eroded faith in the safety of adults is a recurring theme in his work, but “The Shards” cynically wraps that in horror, celebrity, luxury brands and needle drops like the Pretenders’ “Bad Boys Get Spanked.” Pop singer Hayes Warner portrays Bret’s girlfriend Debbie, whose father and mother (Wes Bentley and Evan Rachel Wood) share their loveless relationship with a psychosexual lich (Broadway producer Jordan Roth).
That two of Bret’s other pals are played by Cindy Crawford’s daughter, Kaia Gerber, and Richard Gere’s son, Homer Gere, is also a classic Murphy move: The offspring of previously married ‘80s icons starring in a story about the era their parents ruled? Fabulous! So what if Gerber looks like she’s repeating 12th grade for the tenth time? Realism is not the point.
Instead, think of “The Shards” as a View-Master reel designed to give Gen Z a glimpse at the lost age of excess they’re pining for. Cocaine and smoking are back, after all, along with outsize glamour. Bret may lament childhood’s demise, but if you had helicopter parents, these throes probably look less like trash than fire.
New episodes of “The Shards” premiere Wednesdays on FX and Hulu.
Ford's CEO has described the new Ford Fathom as a "Model T moment" for the company. But the EV pickup is unlikely to live up to lofty expectations, and maybe it doesn't have to.
In 2020 the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts picked up a one-star review that read "worst aquarium ever." It is a museum about the history of whaling, and it keeps no live whales. Six years later, the museum has printed the line on hoodies, T-shirts, crew necks, and bags, according to Boston 25 News. — Read the rest
For nearly a year now, Ford has been teasing big things at low prices from its next generation of EVs, a "Model T moment" built atop a new platform assembled in an innovative way. Today, we know the name and price of the first product to take advantage of that supposed moment: a midsize electric truck called Fathom that starts at just $28,350.
That's not exactly great news for fans of the Slate Truck, the new electric upstart that's leaning hard into its feature-free nature by painting itself as the ultimate DIY machine. Paint, though, is among the long line of modern niceties omitted to help the Slate Truck reach its starting price of $24, …
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