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Anyone born before the advent of the digital age likely has a big box of family photos sitting somewhere in their home; a relic of the days before smartphones replaced analog cameras and the cloud replaced film prints.

I, too, have such a box and have made various attempts over the years to digitize the photos so they can be safely preserved and easily sorted in my Google Drive. Unfortunately, without specialized equipment, photo scanning is a time-consuming process, and while phone apps like Photomyne aim to make the process faster, I've found the quality of the scans is often poor.

I wasn't too bothered by my lack of progress on my photo scanning project until I came across my 90-year-old grandmother's trove of family photos last summer. Contained within five huge boxes were tens of thousands of photographs representing over a century of family history. Many of the photos and albums had already been damaged by basement flooding or faded with time, so it suddenly became imperative that I find a way to quickly digitize this massive cache of photos so future generations could enjoy them.

Enter the Epson FastFoto (FF-680W), the only home scanner on the market that can batch-process up to 35 photos at a time, with scanning speeds up to 80 photos per minute. Overall, I think this is one of the best and most economical solutions for anyone who has a lot of photos to scan, but once your project is complete, you may find little use for it.

An upright scanner that takes up little desk space

The FastFoto looks like a shrunken-down version of a classic printer and fits easily on a desk for easy access. Make no mistake: The FastFoto only scans and has no printing functions. And, this scanner is primarily designed for digitizing printed photos with a maximum width and height of 8.5 inches by 11.7 inches.

You put the photos into the scanner like you would load paper into a printer: there's a feeder with sliders to accommodate various picture sizes. The photos are pulled through the scanner and deposited in the landing tray. The whole unit has a cover that protects the scanner from dust when not in use.

Unlike a traditional flatbed scanner, where you lift a cover and scan each one at a time, the feeder system speeds up the process and makes photo-scanning and archiving more convenient. 

Although the FastFoto resembles Epson's other sheet-fed document scanners, it's not designed for multi-page document scanning. I've tried, but since it scans each page as an individual file, you're forced to assemble the PDF manually.

Simple setup, controls, and connectivity

You have two options for connecting the FastFoto to your computer: use the included USB-A or connect via WiFi. Like many current laptops, my computer has no USB-A slots, so I used WiFi. The scanner is outfitted to connect to WiFi via your router's WPS button, which simplifies the wireless pairing. If your router has no WPS button, you can manually connect your scanner to the network using Epson's scanning software or smartphone app.

Lightning-fast, high-quality scans

Epson suggests that you organize your photos by size and orientation before scanning. This was by far the most time-consuming process. I took it a step further and also organized photos by year. The software allows you to set a date for each batch of photos you scan. While you don't have to use this feature, this step is important if you plan on importing your scans into an app like Google Photos and want to have your scanned images accurately organized by year. Organizing my photos this way took about 4 hours for 1,800 images.

Once I had my images organized, the actual process of scanning took barely an hour. I was shocked that in such a short period, I had tackled a huge project that had daunted me for years. The one-hour scanning time included dealing with a few snags and re-scans (I'll explain a bit more about that below), loading and unloading the photos, and changing the date within the Epson software for each new batch. 

During scanning, the software deposits the images into folders on your computer organized by year. For each image, the software creates two to three files: an original, an enhanced version, and a scan of the back of the photo if any images or text were detected. This last feature was both a blessing and a curse: I loved that it automatically preserved the hand-written notes on many of my grandma's photos, but I also ended up with many images of blank photo backs because the scanner had detected a logo on the photo paper commonly used to print film back in the analog days. 

In most cases, I actually preferred the enhanced version of the image. I thought the software did a good job of color-correcting and clarifying images so more detail was visible. None of the scans had glare, blur, or pixelation, which are issues I've encountered with phone scanning apps. 

Overall, I thought the scanner did a phenomenal job scanning standard photo sizes: 4 x 6 and 5 x 7 inches. I encountered more difficulty with atypical sizes, thicknesses, or materials (like Polaroid photos). Scanning these requires using the FastFoto's included carrier sheet. I thought this sheet introduced some color distortion and a ripple effect where the transparency covers the photo. Once these photos were scanned, they had to be manually cropped and rotated; a task I found a bit tedious. Fortunately, atypical photos only made up a small fraction of all the images I needed to scan.

Another pain point was that several times during scanning, the FastFoto stopped mid-scan, and I'd get a spinning wheel on the software screen. When it was clear that the issue wouldn't resolve on its own, I had to force quit the software or restart the scanner. Both these actions caused me to lose every photo I had already scanned in the current batch — sometimes hundreds of photos. It also forced me to retrieve the stuck photo from the grip of the scanner belts, which ruined at least one of my photos. This inexplicable shutdown happened three times during the course of my project. 

Lastly, the purported integration with Google Photos failed for me.  I had to upload all my images to Google Photos manually. Again, this only took a few extra steps, but is another frustrating glitch in the buggy and dated-feeling software. I'm no software engineer, but I think there could be vast improvements to user experience with just a few simple updates to the app. 

Should you buy the Epson FastFoto?

I can't deny that this scanner quickly loses its utility after completing your project, which took only a few days for me. Since it can't print and isn't ideal for document scanning (my printer is more user-friendly for scanning multi-page text documents), you basically just have a bulky, pricey electronic with little use on your hands. You can sell it or loan it out to friends and family, but in this digital age, there aren't many circumstances where you'll accumulate a cache of analog photos that need scanning in the future. 

That said, from my research, the alternatives to the Epson FastFoto boil down to three options: hire a service (pricey), scan the photos manually (time-consuming), or use a phone app (low quality). The going rate for professional photo scanning is about $0.17 per photo, so I'd say that if you have more than 3,000 photos to scan, the cost of the FastFoto is well justified. You'll just need to plan for what to do with it when your project has wrapped.

The bottom line

The Epson FastFoto is the easiest and fastest solution I've found for digitizing old photos. It's a load off my shoulders to know that my precious family memories are preserved and backed up digitally in case anything ever happens to the originals. If you have a significant number of photos to scan, this is far and away the best value solution, and one I highly recommend for peace of mind when it comes to preserving important family mementos. 

• US soldiers were evacuated from beached Army boats after a storm damaged the floating pier in Gaza.
• Three Army boats were beached in Gaza over the weekend after high seas broke apart the aid pier.
• Repairing the pier could take over a week, disrupting the US effort to send aid to Palestinians.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that US soldiers had been stuck on three Army boats beached in Gaza over the weekend after high seas and a storm broke apart an aid pier the service built to deliver food to starving Palestinians.

US Central Command confirmed that the soldiers had been evacuated from the boats by Tuesday after the vessels broke free from their moorings on Saturday, though it was not immediately clear how long the troops were stuck on the shore. The update immediately followed earlier information released by the Pentagon that the soldiers were still aboard the grounded boats.

Along with the beachings of the Army boats, the storm also battered and broke apart the aid pier — a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, operation by the Army — leaving the future of the key US humanitarian effort uncertain. The pier was set up to move hundreds of metric tons of aid to the area amid a brutal, months-long Israeli offensive against Hamas.

The boat groundings and destruction are the latest trouble for the pier and could disrupt the US effort for at least a week, according to the Pentagon.

"The Israeli navy will be helping push those vessels back, and hopefully they'll be fully operational," Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday, noting that one ship should be recovered in the next day and the other two in the next 48 hours.

Minutes after the briefing concluded, a defense official told Military.com that "all service members have been removed from the beached vessels."

In addition to the storms beaching the four boats that were holding the aid pier in place, Singh confirmed that "a portion of the Trident pier separated from the pier that is currently anchored into the coast of Gaza" and "the Trident pier was damaged."

Video of the section of pier, broken off and floating in the water, was posted to social media Monday.

Singh said the broken section was eventually recovered and that the pier will be completely removed from its location in Gaza in the next 48 hours to be towed back to the Israeli port of Ashdod for repairs.

Rebuilding and repairs will take "at least over a week," according to Singh.

The Pentagon spokeswoman said that the military's intention is to repair and eventually re-anchor the temporary pier to the coast and "resume humanitarian aid to the people who need it most."

Singh said that the dramatic halt to the aid mission and beaching of the ships were the result of a "unique, unfortunate pattern of events with high seas and another storm that came in" and rendered the pier inoperable.

However, this is also not the first hurdle that the aid mission has encountered since it was announced by President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech months ago.

In April, one of the ships set to carry supplies for the mission was forced to turn back to port after experiencing a fire in its engine room. Ship trackers and maritime experts also noted that one of the Army ships seemed to get stuck in Tenerife — a small island that is part of the Canary Islands cluster off the west coast of Africa — leading to speculation and concerns about more breakdowns.

In late April, a mortar attack hit the shoreline near the pier's eventual location but caused "minimal damage." Then, as troops readied the pier for installation, high seas caused delays.

Even once the pier was up and running, snags and problems continued to crop up.

Last week, Pentagon officials conceded that some of the first truckloads of aid were not making it to the Palestinians but rather into the hands of looters. Reporters also found that Israeli settlers have taken to attacking aid shipments at border crossings, and some aid groups have accused Israeli security forces of tipping off settlers to aid convoy routes — in turn, allowing them to attack or block them.

On Tuesday, Singh was adamant that, despite setbacks and problems, the mission is valuable and the Pentagon is determined to see it through.

"You have men and women out there, separated from their families … who are putting others first to try and be part of a lifesaving mission that has seen over 1,000 metric tons of aid come in," Singh said.

"So, hopefully, when we are able to re-anchor the pier back in, you'll be able to see that aid flow off in a pretty steady stream," she added.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with information from US Central Command.

• YouTube was founded by three PayPal employees in 2005.
• Since launching, it's become the most popular free video-sharing platform in the world.
• Take a look at the history of YouTube.

In its 19-year history, YouTube has become the undisputed king of online video.

It has well over 2 billion monthly users who watch hundreds of hundreds of millions of hours of content every single day. But many people don't know how YouTube got its start.

The company rose like a rocket ship after its founding in 2005, and was bought by Google just 18 months later. Under Google, YouTube went from being a repository of amateur video to a powerhouse of original content, not to mention a launching pad for its own new brand of superstars, like MrBeast and the Smosh Brothers.

Here is how YouTube got its explosive start, and maintained that momentum to become the biggest force in online video.

In late 2004, three early employees of PayPal — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim — start working on an idea for a website for users to upload video-dating profiles.

They worked out of Hurley's garage in Menlo Park, California, according to a report from USA Today.

On Valentine's Day in 2005, Hurley — as CEO — registered the trademark, logo, and domain for YouTube.

The website launched to a small subset of users. However, YouTube-as-a-dating-site attracted little interest, forcing the cofounder to take out ads paying women $20 to upload dating videos. Instead, users started uploading videos of all kinds to YouTube.

Based on the feedback, the cofounders transformed YouTube into a free video-hosting platform in April 2005, where each clip had a unique link.

But the story of how the cofounders got to this point is a much-contested one.

Karim has maintained that the cofounders drew inspiration from two significant events in 2004: Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl and the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

However, Chen and Hurley said they thought of the idea of YouTube as a place to upload videos they had taken at a party. Chen said this story was later concocted with the help of an outside PR firm to replace YouTube's dating origins.

In April 2005, the first video ever was uploaded. to the website while YouTube was still in private beta.

The video, called "Me at the zoo," is only 18 seconds long. It shows Karim, one of the cofounders, standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo and talking about their trunks.

Investment firm Sequoia Capital invested $3.5 million in YouTube's Series A round in September 2005.

Sequoia partner Roelof Botha worked at PayPal with the cofounders, and learned about YouTube after using it to upload old wedding and honeymoon videos.

By December 2005, YouTube officially launched out of beta, and was made available to the public. At this point, YouTube was getting eight million views a day, according to report from Telegraph.

After clips of the Saturday Night Live sketch "Lazy Sunday" attracted millions of views on YouTube in February 2006, NBC demanded a particularly viral clip be removed from the site.

NBC's complaint paved the way for YouTube's "Content Verification Program," which launched in October 2007 to help content creators easily identify videos that infringed on their copyrights and get them removed, The New York Times reported. YouTube and NBC eventually struck a deal to help promote the network's upcoming fall TV line-up in June 2006.

Later in 2005, a video was uploaded to YouTube showing two boys in China lip-synching to the Backstreet Boys. Susan Wojcicki — YouTube's former CEO who was in charge of Google's acquisitions at the time — said the video convinced her it would be worth it for Google to invest in user-generated content by purchasing YouTube.

Later in April, venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Artis Capital Management invested $8 million in YouTube's Series B funding round, bringing total investment in the site to around $12 million. When YouTube was acquired months later, these firms' investments paid out massively, according to a report from the Times.

After a back-and-forth battle between Yahoo and Google, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006.

The deal netted the cofounders nearly $400 million each in profits. The same day the deal goes through, YouTube moved to its headquarters in San Bruno, California.

The same month Apple launched its first iPhone model in June 2007, YouTube launched its mobile site.

Chad Hurley, YouTube's CEO at the time, predicted that mobile would be a "huge market," making YouTube's mobile site a "natural transition."

In July, YouTube teamed up with CNN to host a presidential debate during the 2008 election cycle, featuring video questions submitted by the public. Seven out of the 16 presidential candidates in 2008 announced their campaigns via YouTube.

In July, YouTube teamed up with CNN to host a presidential debate during the 2008 election cycle, featuring video questions submitted by the public.

In August 2007, Google rolled out its first ads on YouTube videos.

Instead of an option for traditional pre-video ads, the company chose a new in-video format featuring semi-transparent banners that popped up on the lower portion of videos and could be clicked away after several seconds.

Later that year in December 2007, YouTube rolled out its "Partner Program" to select creators, allowing them to earn money from their content based on ad revenue.

It allowed YouTubers to turn their hobby into a career. Not even a year later, the most successful creators were earning six-figure incomes, The New York Times reported.

In November 2008, YouTube expanded its ad offerings to include sponsored videos and pre-roll ads, a format YouTube long said it wouldn't resort to because those ads were too intrusive to the audience. However, the benefits paid to brands and advertisers beat out customer experience in the end.

In 2009, YouTube teamed up with media company Vivendi to launch a new music video service called Vevo, responding to music companies' complaints about piracy and unfair licensing terms.

As part of the deal, Vevo could distribute its music videos on YouTube, setting the groundwork for Vevo's massive YouTube presence today.

In April 2010, Felix Kjellberg joined YouTube to create content under the channel name PewDiePie, where he first provided video-game commentary before expanding into vlogging and internet memes.

The YouTuber has since surpassed 111 million subscribers, and was the most-subscribed-to solo creator on the platform for several years.

In February 2017, PewDiePie was the subject of a bombshell Wall Street Journal investigation that found nine of his past videos contained "anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery."

One of those videos showed two men, paid by PewDiePie, holding up a sign reading "Death to All Jews." Both YouTube and Disney cut ties with him, and he was kicked out of YouTube's top-tier advertising program.

In October 2010, Hurley, a YouTube cofounder, stepped down as CEO.

In his place, Google appointed Salar Kamangar, who the company said had already been leading YouTube's daily operations for two years, according to a statement provided to BBC.

In April 2011, YouTube officially entered the broadcast business with the launch of YouTube Live.

YouTube Live allowed the site to stream all types of content, including concerts, sports games, the royal wedding, and the Olympics.

In May 2011, YouTube soft-launched a rental service, from which consumers could choose thousands of movies and TV shows to rent and stream directly on the platform, according to Digital Commerce 360.

Later that year, it invested $100 million into its first batch of original channels in a push to create original content on the platform, according to a report from All Things D. YouTube partnered with established brands and major celebrities, a move that creators viewed as the platform's disregard for their value and influence.

In January 2013, YouTube opened "YouTube Spaces" in Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, New York, and Sao Paulo.

The spaces functioned as recording and creating studios for YouTube content creators.

After the pandemic, the company announced the spaces closed and said it would be shifting to a hybrid model, combining pop-up locations with virtual events.

In February 2014, Susan Wojcicki — Google's 16th employee who helped convince the company to buy YouTube — was named the new CEO of the video-sharing platform.

After nearly a decade of serving as CEO, Wojcicki stepped down in February 2023.

Wojcicki said she was stepping down to "start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I'm passionate about." She said she would continue to advise the company.

In February 2015, Google launched a "family-friendly" version of the video platform called YouTube Kids.

The platform filtered content in an effort to ensure it was safe for minors and offers parental controls like limiting screen time and disabling search.

Later that year in August, YouTube Gaming debuted as a way for gamers to livestream their play sessions to a live audience, as well as interact and chat with fans in real-time. The service was meant to counter Amazon-owned Twitch, the dominant force in the live-streaming market, which Google reportedly tried (and failed) to buy a year earlier.

In October, YouTube unveiled YouTube Red, a subscription service that lets customers watch videos and stream music without ads. Three years later, YouTube Red was renamed YouTube Premium and spun off its music streaming to a separate service called YouTube Music.

In March 2017, major companies across the US and in international markets — like AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, and the British government — pulled their ads from YouTube en masse after the Times of London reported that ads were appearing alongside extremist and offensive content.

YouTube's ability to police content was put into question, and analysts estimated the boycott cost the company $750 million.

In April 2017, YouTube made the first of two major algorithm changes: It put stricter policies on ads and later revamped its Partner Program to raise the eligibility requirements for money-generating channels.

These changes, along with the advertiser boycott, helped kick off YouTube's first "Adpocalypse," a term creators coined for the advertising impact.

In April 2017, YouTube TV, an on-demand streaming service, officially launched in select markets.

The service didn't go nationwide for another two years, and the price has since increased to $72.99 per month.

In November 2017, users found family-friendly videos containing disturbing and abusive content across YouTube and YouTube Kids platforms.

More advertisers pulled their ads, and YouTube responded by updating its policies around age-restricted content.

In December, YouTuber Logan Paul posted a video of him and friends discovering and filming a dead body in Japan's so-called "suicide forest." Outrage over the video was swift. Although he wasn't banned from YouTube, he was suspended from its top-tier ad revenue program.

Then, in February 2019, YouTuber Matt Watson posted about what he described as a "soft-core pedophilia ring" living in the comments on YouTube videos featuring children. YouTube responded by disabling comments on videos featuring children.

The Federal Trade Commission fined YouTube $170 million in 2019 after investigating whether it violates children's privacy laws by collecting data of children under the age of 13 without their parents' consent.

In February 2020, Google broke out the video platform's ad revenue for the first time since YouTube was acquired.

YouTube generated $15 billion in ad revenue in 2019, 9% of parent company Alphabet's total ad revenue.

YouTuber MrBeast reached over 100 million subscribers in 2022.

MrBeast started posting videos on YouTube when he was around 13 years old, under the username "MrBeast6000."

After going viral for posting a video of himself counting to 100,000, he started uploading similar content, like him spinning a fidget spinner for 24 hours. Now he's known as "YouTube's biggest philanthropist" for frequently posting charity stunts.

The 26-year-old has 262 million subscribers and brings in about $600 to $700 million annually, although he still doesn't consider himself wealthy and has said he puts most of his money back into producing more videos.

Neal Mohan took over as YouTube's CEO in 2023. The company was once Mohan's client in the mid-2000s when he led strategy as adtech company DoubleClick.

Under Mohan's leadership, YouTube partnered with the NFL to exclusively broadcast Sunday Ticket football.

The NFL said shortly after the partnership began that YouTube's Sunday Ticket package had more subscribers than it did the year prior on DirecTV.

The CEO is also focused on advancing the platform's AI capabilities and offerings. Mohan said that in 2024, tools like Dream Screen and YouTube Create will encourage more content creation.

In April 2024, two YouTube employees detailed the company's strategy to lean on video and audio at a virtual seminar for podcasters.

One of the employees said YouTube Music gives users a choice on how to consume podcasts. They can listen to audio-only or watch it in video format — and they can go back and forth between the two if the episode is downloaded with YouTube Premium.

In 2024, YouTube says it plans to build a Vision Pro app down the line.

Initially, it looked like YouTube was going to ice out Apple's fancy new "spatial computing" headset, the Vision Pro.

A YouTube spokesperson initially told The Verge that access to the site on the headset would be through Safari, and that an app wasn't currently in the works.

But YouTube revealed shortly after the release that a dedicated app for the headset was "on our roadmap."

Competition with TikTok ramped up in 2024 as it puts an emphasis on longer videos.

YouTube and TikTok are both battling to get creators to post to their respective platforms. One of the biggest ways they can do that is by payout programs

TikTok's new creator rewards program was announced in March after months of testing it in a beta program. It incentivizes creators to post longer videos by requiring users to create videos over one minute long to qualify for payments.

The new program also prioritizes search and said it will assign videos a "search value" based on how aligned they are with trending search topics. That search value will help determine a creator's payout, in addition to other factors like engagement.

YouTube becomes the top platform for AI influencers in 2024 as some creators and companies start to grow their audience with virtual identities.

The accounts are referred to as digital avatars or AI-generated virtual influencers, and include accounts like Lil Miquela and Magazine Luiza. The AI influencers have been gaining popularity across platforms like YouTube, along with Instagram and TikTok.

According to a report by The Influencer Marketing Factory, YouTube is the top platform for AI influencers, with 59% of participants responding they followed these creators there. TikTok was right behind, with 56%, the study said.

• Investor and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has laid out his plans for BuzzFeed.
• He envisions turning the company into a Twitter/X-style user-generated content company.
• But BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti controls the company, and doesn't take Ramaswamy seriously. So what's the endgame here?

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced last week he had been buying up shares in BuzzFeed. Which led to the obvious question: Why is Vivek Ramaswamy buying up shares in BuzzFeed?

Now we know. Sort of.

Ramaswamy says he has been buying up shares in BuzzFeed — he says he now owns 8.37% of the company's "A" shares — because he has a plan to turn the struggling publisher around.

He's laid it out in a letter to BuzzFeed's board, but if you're in a hurry I can summarize it for you: Ramaswamy wants BuzzFeed to pull an Elon Musk.

That is: He wants the company to cut costs to the bone, sell off some of its remaining assets, and transform itself into an X-style (that is, the company formerly known as Twitter since Musk bought it) video and audio platform — one that's particularly appealing to commentators from "Tucker Carlson to Bill Maher," according to his letter. He says the first step would be to elect three Ramaswamy-endorsed board members in July.

There's more in the letter if you want to get into it. For instance, Ramaswamy spends a lot of time lambasting BuzzFeed for things the company has published in the past, like the Trump "dossier." And he wants BuzzFeed to apologize, because "by both omission and commission, [it] repeatedly lied on issues of national importance, and so did the rest of the media," he writes.

And if you wanted to take this stuff at face value, you might also note that some things Ramaswamy is pushing for sound like things BuzzFeed CEO and founder Jonah Peretti has said he wants to do — notably the idea of using the company as a creator-friendly platform.

But I don't think that's a particularly useful way to spend your time. Debating the merits of Ramaswamy's plan seems like a cart-horse problem since Peretti has control of the company via a dual-class share structure, which gives him 64% of the company's voting rights. That's a structure specifically set up to give Peretti the ability to fend off takeovers or activist investors like Ramaswamy.

And Peretti does not seem like he's treating Ramaswamy seriously. Here's the relevant part of his response to Ramaswamy's letter:

Based on your letter, you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the drivers of our business, the values of our audience, and the mission of the company. I'm very skeptical it makes business sense to turn BuzzFeed into a creator platform for inflammatory political pundits. And we're definitely not going to issue an apology for our Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.

So unless Ramaswamy has another card to play, I still don't understand what his end goal is here. (I have asked him for comment.)

I had previously speculated that this was a relatively cheap way for Ramaswamy to keep his name in the news, and to court an audience receptive to Donald Trump's grievance politics. So maybe that's still the main driver here. Though it's hard to believe there's deep interest from MAGA-land about the state of BuzzFeed.

Another option would be for Ramaswamy to play this out a while longer and watch BuzzFeed shares shoot up based on his saber-rattling. BuzzFeed shares closed at $3 today, up 20% from May 22, when Ramaswamy first disclosed his stake. If it keeps heading up, it might be tempting for Ramaswamy to sell off his shares, and then simply declare that he's decided it's cheaper to build his own platform.

• An ex-OpenAI board member revealed new details about Sam Altman's brief ousting as CEO.
• Helen Toner said Altman lied to the board "multiple" times and was "withholding information." 
• Toner claimed he didn't tell the board about ChatGPT's release; they found out on Twitter, she said. 

Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner revealed explosive new details about what led to CEO Sam Altman's brief ousting in November.

In an interview with Bilawal Sidhu on "The Ted AI Show," which aired Tuesday, Toner said Altman had lied to the board multiple times.

As one example, Toner said OpenAI's board learned about the release of ChatGPT on Twitter.

She said that Altman was "withholding information" and "misrepresenting things that were happening in the company" for years.

Toner — one of the board members who voted to kick Altman out — alleged Altman also lied to the board by keeping them in the dark about the company's ownership structure.

"Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company," she said.

Altman keeping that from the board "really damaged our ability to trust him" and that the board was "already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him" in October, she said.

OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Toner — currently a director of strategy at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown — alleges the OpenAI chief also gave board members "inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes" OpenAI had in place.

She said that made it "basically impossible" for the board to understand if the safety measures were sufficient or if any changes were needed.

She said there were other individual examples, but ultimately, the board concluded that "we just couldn't believe things that Sam was telling us, and that's a completely unworkable place to be in as a board."

Toner added that it was "totally impossible" for the board to trust Altman's word. The board, she said, had a role to have independent oversight of OpenAI and "not just helping the CEO to raise more money."

But then, last October, the board had a number of conversations where two executives detailed their own experiences with Altman in which they used the phrase "psychological abuse," according to Toner.

She said the executives told the board they "didn't think he was the right person to lead the company to AGI, telling us they had no belief that he could or would change, no point in giving him feedback, no point in trying to work through these issues." 

By the time the board realized Altman needed replacing, Toner says it was clear that Altman would "pull out all the stops" to block the board from going against him if he found out. She claims he "started lying to other board members in order to try and push me off the board."

She said, "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17."

But Altman's ouster didn't last long.

As staff threatened to quit and speculation swirled that Microsoft may poach Altman's team from OpenAI and hire him directly, the company's board brought back Altman as CEO less than a week later.

Toner resigned from her role as an OpenAI board member less than two weeks after Altman returned as CEO.

Do you work for OpenAI? Do you have insights to share? Contact the reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com or reach out via Signal at jyotimann.11

• Target has slashed its annual Pride collection after the retailer faced protests last summer.
• Now, rather than thousands of LGBTQ+ themed products, the assortment has around 75 items.
• Target said it's made changes "based on guest insights and sales trends."

Target's annual Pride collection is a shadow of its former self after the retailer faced protests from conservative groups last summer.

After a decade of offering a special collection of products sourced from the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate Pride month in June, the retailer said last year it was "rethinking" its cultural merchandising strategy.

Pride this year at Target is shaping up to be a lot smaller, shorter, and quieter than it once was — and there's a good chance you might not see it at all.

Whereas last May, Target's Pride collection featured more than 2,000 items online, this year's assortment consists of several dozen items — fewer than 75 in the regions Business Insider examined, including California, New York, and Wisconsin — as of May 28th.

Now instead of bold statements and functional garments, the selection has more toned-down rainbow-themed apparel and accessories, a few alcoholic drinks, pet gear, and a cutting board emblazoned with "It's Giving Charcuterie."

The company said earlier this month only select stores would carry Pride products, rather than all of its nearly 2,000 US locations.

Business Insider visited a store on Tuesday in Madison, Wisconsin, and found that Target had yet to set out any Pride merchandise, although the company's website and app said items could be purchased from that location. A guest services employee at the store confirmed to BI that online orders could be fulfilled from the store, and said the store display should be available starting June 1.

For now, what previously had been the location of a front-of-store Pride display was instead occupied by a summer "Swim and Sand Shop." Days earlier the spot had been set up for a pickleball promotion.

In an interview last year as the conservative firestorm was gaining momentum, CEO Brian Cornell argued against the idea that Target was too "woke."

"When we think about purpose at Target, it's really about helping all the families, and that 'all' word is really important," he said "We want to do the right thing to support families across the country."

"I think those are just good business decisions, and it's the right thing for society, and it's the great thing for our brand," he added.

A year after the remarks, we're getting a better sense of what exactly is changing as the company switches up its strategy, which Target has said was the result of sales trends and guest insights.

"Please know our intention is to bring our culture of care to life for our LGBTQIA+ team members — not just during June, but year-round," Target's VP of Brand Marketing Carlos Saavedra said in an email to the company's Pride+ Business Council earlier this month. "We remain committed to this wonderful community, and we are so excited to celebrate Pride with you all."

• EVs go a lot farther these days, but chargers are still hard to find.
• No one seems to agree whose job it is to build charging infrastructure.
• Building enough chargers is just one part of the problem.

Electric vehicles have come a long way — literally.

In the earliest days of the EV transition, a fully battery-powered car (like the first-generation Nissan Leaf that went on sale in 2010) could only drive for about 100 miles on a full charge in the best weather conditions.

That's fine for an enthusiastic early adopter or someone looking to replace just one of their multiple gas cars, but it didn't satisfy the average car shopper.

Today, a mass-market EV can deliver about 300 miles on a single charge. That's a huge improvement in just 14 years, but the great American road trip is still far from achievable in an EV, thanks to one persistent issue: range anxiety.

Car companies and battery suppliers have spent years working to quell this anxiety. But despite the vast improvements in battery technology, EV charging still can't hold a candle to the 5-minute stop to fill a gas tank.

Even as charging times come down (GM boasts its Ultium batteries can gain about 100 miles of range in 10 minutes on a DC fast charger), there simply aren't enough public chargers in the right spots.

Car companies hoped the public charging infrastructure would improve along with them as they built more range into their vehicles. This hasn't really happened, though, and a slew of EVs are hitting the market with nowhere to charge up on a road trip, exacerbating one of the biggest barriers to adoption.

Charging is a hot potato issue

One thing essentially everyone can agree on in the EV transition is that vast and reliable fast-charging infrastructure is essential. Studies have shown that areas with more access to public charging infrastructure have higher rates of EV adoption, even though a majority of charging happens at home.

What no one can seem to agree on is who is responsible for building out public charging infrastructure. And a closer look reveals that perhaps pinning the problem on one entity, public or private, will only slow efforts to grow.

Car companies have made some efforts to build out charging infrastructure, partnering with charging companies and other stakeholders to install public chargers and help new EV buyers install home charging systems.

Tesla, which has always led the way with its Supercharger network, is also opening its stations to other car manufacturers, aiding in patching the holes in the public charging network.

All these industry efforts have helped to feed an EV charging infrastructure boom in recent years. At the start of 2024, there were some 61,000 public charging stations in the US, more than doubling the amount of stations there were in 2020, according to Pew Research and the Department of Energy.

Still, that's way less than the roughly 120,000 gas stations nationwide, and public efforts to grow charging infrastructure appear to be slow-going so far.

The Biden Administration has set aside $7.5 billion for charging infrastructure with a vow to add 500,000 EV charging stations by 2030. Since Congress approved this funding two years ago, only a handful of stations have gone live, according to reports.

Building out charging infrastructure is just one piece of the puzzle

We're still far from the level of infrastructure required for mass adoption, even as the rate of EV sales hits a slowdown.

One slowdown appears to feed the other: a new crop of EV shoppers isn't interested in buying a car that might die on a road trip, and charging companies aren't willing to grow for customers that don't exist yet.

On top of the issue of infrastructure coverage, there is the question of where we will get the power to run all of these new charging stations.

A recent study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that utilities are not fully equipped to handle the large swings in usage that can be caused by increased amounts of EV charging.

All this means that cross-industry efforts — between car companies, their suppliers, charging startups, and public utilities — will be crucial as we continue to grow the share of electric cars on the road.

• Herschel Walker still has millions left over from his unsuccessful Georgia Senate campaign.
• Republicans are unhappy that he hasn't sent over money to boost 2024 campaign efforts, per Politico.
• The Georgia GOP has been weighed down financially as it has paid the legal fees of the 2020 fake electors.

Two years ago, the University of Georgia football icon and then-Senate candidate Herschel Walker was seen by many Republicans as a future star in the party.

Walker, running against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate race, won over many establishment politicians. GOP voters overwhelmingly coalesced around his campaign. And many observers predicted that a "red wave" would sweep him into office.

But Walker — weighed down by numerous controversies and his inability to appeal to moderates in the competitive race — eventually lost to Warnock in a December 2022 runoff election.

Walker is not running for another elected position in 2024. However, he still has $4.3 million left in the bank from his Senate run, much to the frustration of Republicans in Georgia and Washington — who say that the money could go a long way in aiding their party this year — according to Politico.

"Those resources were solicited and given to support his candidacy as a Georgia Republican, and unless he intends to use them again for his own candidacy, I sure hope the favor would be returned," ex-Georgia Republican Party chairman John Watson told the outlet.

Walker previously contributed $100,000 to the National Republican Senate Committee for a recount fund, and he also gave roughly $400,000 to charities, according to Politico.

But Walker so far has not given any indication that he will be a major player in Georgia politics this year.

After his Senate loss, he returned to the University of Georgia to complete his undergraduate degree.

When contacted by Politico about the unspent funds, Walker said that there "wasn't money left in my account." He soon ended the call, telling the outlet that he needed to complete a paper.

Over the past year, the Georgia GOP has been strained financially as it has paid the legal fees of the alternate fake electors who have faced charges over their efforts to overturn Biden's 2020 win in the state.

Two-term Gov. Brian Kemp — a conservative who clashed with Trump-aligned figures over the 2020 election — has largely bypassed the state party by utilizing his own political committee to fundraise.

And Trump is playing catch-up financially as he continues to trail the Biden campaign in the money race.

With Georgia once again in focus as a key swing state in November, both Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a widespread campaign to turn out their respective bases.

The stakes couldn't be higher: Trump won Georgia in 2016 but lost the state to Biden in 2020, largely because the president ran up the score in metropolitan Atlanta and among Black voters in rural Georgia. The former president very much wants to win the state again. But Biden is eager to hold Georgia, as his 2020 win in the state was one of the biggest electoral triumphs for Democrats that year.

• Closing arguments in Trump's Manhattan criminal trial are expected this week.
• The jury will then consider whether to render a historic verdict.
• Polls show that the proceedings may change few votes, but there's potential peril ahead for Trump.

Former President Donald Trump has turned his legal woes into a conservative cause celebre.

The greatest test of that strategy could arrive as soon as later this week. Closing arguments in Trump's Manhattan hush money criminal trial are expected to occur on Tuesday. Twelve New Yorkers will then weigh the possibility of a historic verdict: finding the first-ever former president guilty in a criminal trial.

Polling shows that a guilty verdict has some potential peril. But the strongest possibility is that voters will tune it out entirely in favor of economic issues, on which Trump scores far higher than President Joe Biden.

Voters are paying attention to the trial but have thus far largely discounted it.

Trump and his allies might not have to spin much.

In a recent Quinnipiac University nationwide poll, 62% of voters said a guilty verdict would not affect their vote in November. In comparison, just 21% said it would change their minds.

A Cook Political Report polling partnership that surveyed seven battleground states found that 40% of voters said Trump's legal woes had no impact on their support or were unsure. Interestingly, the same survey found voters were broadly aware of Trump's problems when asked about the hush money trial, a previous civil fraud trial, and a separate civil trial that found the former president liable for sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll decades ago.

Voters were also asked by the Cook partnership whether they were more concerned about Biden's age or Trump's temperament and legal issues. Narrowly (53% to 47%), they said Biden's age was more concerning.

Trump has rallied Republicans, but the broader public isn't entirely convinced.

Trump has repeatedly shown he can rally Republicans to his side when his legal problems mount. But the average voter is not a GOP member of Congress nor responding to Trump's fundraising appeals.

Despite Trump's and allies' efforts to cast doubt on the entire prosecution, some polls have found that Americans see legitimacy in the process. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that since last month, the hush money trial's approval has increased slightly; there's now a 12-point margin of approval (49%-37%).

That's not to say many voters are sympathetic to some of Trump's claims. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in key battleground states found that among registered voters, slightly more (49%) thought that the former president would not get a fair trial than those who did (45%).

And if there is one clear takeaway from recent polling it's that the American people do think the former president did something wrong, even if he may not have broken the law. The same Yahoo poll found that a majority of Americans (52%) believe Trump falsified business records " to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star" — the charge at the center of the Manhattan case. The Quinnipiac survey that showed voters may not be motivated by the trial also found that 46% of voters believe Trump did something illegal — another 27% believe he did something unethical but not illegal.

Those responses are in stark contrast to the GOP officials, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, who have slammed the trial as a sham.

Trump's reaction will loom over the verdict.

Trump has never been one to take setbacks lightly. He's under a gag order that does not allow him to criticize witnesses, the jury, or Merchan's daughter. Once the verdict is in, Trump can unleash whatever criticism he desires.

It's not hard to imagine that in responding to a potential guilty verdict Trump lashes out in a way that causes him more problems. His attacks on judges have historically triggered some of the rare instances when Republicans speak out more broadly against him. It was then-Speaker Paul Ryan who called Trump's suggestion that a federal judge couldn't fairly adjudicate a case because of his Mexican heritage the "textbook definition" of racism.

But Trump has constantly been able to count on almost all of his fellow Republicans. The FBI's decision to search Mar-a-Lago marked another point of vulnerability for Trump. Almost immediately, top GOP officials rallied to his side.

Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy proclaimed that the Justice Department had reached an "intolerable state of weaponized politicization." Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who had been harshly critical of Trump, expressed concern about the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago.

The repeated shows of unity in the face of a new Trump indictment became so common that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis later complained that they "distorted the primary."

The easiest prediction is that Trump's verdict will likely spawn a wave of donations. According to a Politico analysis, Trump's legal woes are among his most effective fundraising appeals. Trump had one of his best fundraising days since launching his presidential campaign on March 22 when the former president warned his followers that New York Attorney General Tish James might try to seize his assets in connection with a civil fraud verdict.

During the Manhattan criminal trial, Trump has sent repeated fundraising appeals, including when Justice Juan Merchan found Trump in contempt for violating his gag order.

There are obvious costs to such efforts. Trump has relied on his network of political groups to help pay his legal bills. President Joe Biden mounted a significant early cash advantage. While other parts of Trump's orbit have been forced to come to the aid of Save America, the main outfit that has paid Trump's legal fees. According to its most recent filing, the leadership PAC owes over $1.1 million to Trump's lawyers. If the former president is found guilty, his almost certain appeal would likely further draw on this fund for support.

Still, there may never be another day in American history like the one about to unfold.

• My self-employed husband and I moved from Austin to Arkansas after being offered $10,000 to do so. 
• We had great access to nature, and our cost of living was lower, but we didn't love where we lived.
• Living in Arkansas helped us figure out what we wanted and I have no regrets about my time there. 

Nearly every time I mentioned my impending move to Arkansas, I was asked, "Why there?"

It was a curious choice, especially considering I was leaving bustling and lively Austin for Fayetteville, Arkansas, a city known for little more than historical monuments and college football.

My somewhat tongue-in-cheek reply to the above inquiry is that I was bribed.

Money talks, and it said, 'move'

My conversation-prompting response wasn't entirely untrue.

The Northwest Arkansas Council had launched Life Works Here, an initiative that offered $10,000 in cash or bitcoin and a mountain bike to selected remote-work applicants in exchange for moving to the region.

My husband and I are both self-employed, so we could live anywhere but we didn't have an abundant amount of funds to do so in a place with a stratospheric cost of living.

So when we heard about the grant program designed to entice people who worked from home to move to Northwest Arkansas, we thought, "Why not?"

Ready to leave burgeoning Austin, whose shine had begun to patina after eight years, we each applied for the initiative alongside tens of thousands of others.

When my application was one of 100 accepted, we started packing.

After all, the cost of living in the Texas city was rapidly rising and we craved more adventure and outdoors than Austin's manicured parks and overcrowded campsites could offer.

And maybe Arkansas wasn't that big of a jump, anyway. Although Texas had more inbound movers than outbound movers last year, so did Arkansas. According to data collected by major moving company Atlas, Arkansas was actually even more of a relocation hot spot than Texas was in 2023.

Our move came with rough starts and fresh discoveries

We moved in July 2022 and were immediately disenchanted because we arrived during what appeared to be a housing crisis.

This added panic and urgency to our housing search. I was also confused as to why we'd been enticed to move if there weren't enough places to actually live here.

When we finally found a suitable apartment that was much cheaper than what we'd pay for something similar in Austin, we realized we'd made a mistake: Our new place was one highway exit from the Arkansas Razorback stadium.

Living there became a headache that lasted through the late summer and autumn as fans clogged the streets and angrily honked at anyone not wearing the team's signature red.

Still, we enjoyed exploring our new community. We learned to mountain bike, as one does when moving 30 minutes south of Bentonville, the mountain-bike capital of the world.

We joined group rides and participated in trail maintenance, and we became passionate about mountain biking. We enjoyed backpacking trails minutes from our doorstep, visiting campsites that didn't have to be reserved months in advance, and finding accessible outdoor activities in the surrounding national forest.

We found it easier to connect with fellow creatives and became friends with small-business owners who were just as invested in their communities as they were in their own success, which isn't always the case in large cities.

After six months, we knew Arkansas wouldn't be our forever home

Living here was an honor and a privilege, our chance to sample a different sort of existence in a smaller town that loved the outdoors but with little financial risk.

Our Arkansas town had much of what we longed for but showed us we really wanted more: towering peaks, a community of equally passionate outdoor lovers, and the opportunity to try even more sports.

And because we uprooted and moved once with little-to-no concrete evidence it was the right decision, we now knew we could do it again.

In the end, we left Arkansas after 15 months and moved to a small city near the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.

I regret nothing about our transitional period in Arkansas. Our time there was a necessary stepping stone across the river of life, a leap that made the next one seem attainable.

Now, my soul soars when I marvel at peaks from uncrowded trails, cruise downhill on two wheels, and, yes, even tentatively learn to snowboard.

And it's thanks to Arkansas that I realized what I needed to truly thrive.