I’m really am trying to keep on it on the level, and this week we have some interesting stories.. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week, a real life flying car successfully concludes a test flight, Amazon has a beef with the new FTC chairperson, and FINRA fines Robinhood for record dollars. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
THE JETSON REJOICE AS FLYING CAR COMPLETES TEST FLIGHT
My first question is…who in the heck is buying flying cars right now? You’ll read in a moment. Professor Stefan Klein, inventor and creator of the AirCar, has successfully flown a 35-minutes test flight of the world’s first flying car between Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The AirCar is a prototype that seats two passengers and has a 1,000 kilometer range at 2,500 feet. The car has clocked 40 hours in the air, and automakers are saying that the AirCar is part of the future. The AirCar doesn’t take off and land vertically so it requires a runway. There are…40,000 orders for the AirCar in the US according to Klein. And he’s hoping to convert 5% of those orders. Who’s ordering AirCars? My wife will be happy, she’s been wanting to see AirCar’s for the last 21 years.
FINRA ROBS FROM ROBINHOOD BY SLAPPING IT WITH RECORD FINE
Yesterday, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, FINRA, issued a record setting fine against Robinhood, not the fictional character, but the trading app of GameStop fame. FINRA claims that Robinhood regularly mislead its app’s users of trading terms, used flakey algorithms to certify users were able to trade on margin, failed to update its product, trading outages during trading hours, and regularly listed incorrect balances for users accounts. FINRA even cited the possibility of the death of Alex Kearns, a Robinhood user that committed suicide after finding a negative $730,000 balance in his account due to unintentional margin trades. Robinhood has agreed to pay the fine.
AMAZON WANTS FTC CHAIR TO RECUSE HERSELF BECAUSE SHE’S MEAN
After a spectacular show of bipartisanship with the Senate confirming Lina Khan as FTC Chairperson, Amazon has launched an offensive saying that the FTC Chair should recuse herself from investigating Amazon for antitrust offenses. In a 25-page petition, Amazon says that they disagree with Chairperson Khan’s views about the company and technology companies in general. Khan’s view is that current antitrust laws are outdated and don’t limit the limitless power today’s technology companies wield. Remember, Chairperson Khan was confirmed in record time. Both Democrats and Republicans have chosen Big Tech as their whipping boy.