Ford has applied for a patent for a technology that lets vehicles repossess, or repo, themselves.
If owners ignore warnings about missed payments, the system would start disabling itself, starting with features such as GPS, air conditioning, cruise control, and the radio. Then it could make loud and irritating sounds when the driver is present, and finally it would lock the owner out of hte car.
If the owner still doesn't act, the vehicle could drive itself to a spot for a tow truck to pick it up.
The company told NPR it has no plans to roll this out anytime soon. It's also worth noting that Ford doesn't have autonomous vehicles yet, and that submitting patents is a part of the normal course of business.
The CEOs of three popular tech companies have been subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ordered the heads of Discord, Snap and X to testify at a hearing on protecting children online.
Advertisers are fleeing social media platform X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content, hate speech on the site in general or billionaire owner Elon Musk’s own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
