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John Madden, legendary NFL coach and broadcaster who lent his name to one of the most popular video games of all time, has died at 85; plus, Amazon Alexa gives a 10-year-old a deadly challenge and more news.
The NFL announced that Hall of Fame coach John Madden died unexpectedly on Tuesday morning at the age of 85. Madden coached the Oakland Raiders for ten seasons (1969-1978), reaching the championship round 7 of those and winning Super Bowl XI in 1976, NBC reported.
Madden was also one of the league’s top broadcasters and highest earners from 1979-2008, working for CBS, FOX, ABC, and NBC.
Madden also lent his name to the immensely successful Madden NFL video game series by Electronic Arts (EA), originally known as John Madden Football from 1988-1994. As of 2018, the game has sold over 130 million units, and as of 2013, has generated over $4 billion in sales.
“We all know him as the Hall of Fame coach of the Oakland Raiders and broadcaster who worked for every major network, but more than anything, he was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a written statement. “On behalf of the entire NFL family, we extend our condolences.”
“Nobody loved football more than Coach,” Goodell added. “He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today.”
The BBC reported that a ten-year-old girl asked the family Amazon Alexa voice assistant for a “challenge to do,” the BBC reported.
“Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” the Echo smart speaker responded.
The girl’s mother described the incident on Twitter, and the story went viral. The mother said she intervened in time, yelling: “No, Alexa, no!” She added her daughter was “too smart to do something like that.”
Amazon said in a statement that the company took swift action to fix the error as soon as they became aware of it.
The speaker suggested the girl partake of the challenge it had “found on the web.”
Known as “the penny challenge,” it began circulating TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago.
Metals conduct electricity, and inserting them into live electrical sockets can lead to electrical shocks, fires, or other damage. A fire station manager said people could “get seriously hurt” and “lose fingers, hands and arms” through such activity.
Using 66 pounds of dynamite, the owner of a Tesla in Finland decided to blow his vehicle up after receiving a quote of $22,600 to repair it. The man destroyed the car in a rock quarry, going to great lengths to ensure safety in the explosion.
“When I bought that Tesla, the first 1,500km [932 miles] were nice,” owner Tuomas Katainen said in a video posted to YouTube. “Then, error codes hit.”
The original cost of the 2013 Tesla was $57,400. The repair bill to replace the battery pack was almost half the price of the vehicle. Typically, Tesla vehicles come with an 8-year warranty, but the man’s coverage had apparently expired, the Daily Wire reported.
On average, a 2013 Tesla model battery was estimated to last at least 150,000 miles, and some users have reported batteries enduring for 300,000 miles.
You can watch the video here on Twitter.
