Wilderness Resorts and Waterparks ownership group will be building a new 50-acre attraction in the Smoky Mountain region called Soaky Mountain Waterpark.
The outdoor waterpark will be located across the street from the Sevierville Convention Center and Wilderness at the Smokies Resort and will feature a 35,000-square-foot wave pool capable of generating waves up to 6 feet high; a winding wave river spanning an area of 24,000 square feet; and a heavily-themed and exciting kids’ play-and-spray feature with multiple slides.
“Soaky Mountain Waterpark is going to be an amazing destination for families with children of all ages to enjoy,” said Joe Eck, chief operating officer of Wilderness Resort and Waterparks. “It will feature some of the most popular, thrilling and unique water attractions available, and it will all be outdoors in a beautiful mountain-modern park setting.”
Planned slides include a one-of-a-kind water coaster; a family ride tower with two five-person raft rides; a tubing tower with five flumes all featuring unique and thrilling one or two-person tubing experiences; two high-intensity body slides; and a four-lane, head-first mat racing challenge to satisfy everyone’s racing desires.
Eck anticipates that Soaky Mountain Waterpark will be open to the public daily mid-May through August. Pricing for waterpark admission is yet to be determined.
FTC to fine Facebook for privacy violation
The FTC has voted to approve a fine of about $5 billion for Facebook over privacy violations, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Facebook and the FTC declined to comment. The Journal said the 3-2 vote broke along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition to the settlement.
The fine would be the largest the FTC has levied on a tech company. But it won’t make much of a dent for Facebook, which had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year. Facebook has earmarked $3 billion for a potential fine and said in April it was anticipating having to pay up to $5 billion.
The report did not say what else the settlement includes beyond the fine, though it is expected to include limits on how Facebook treats user privacy. Some have called on the FTC to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally liable for the privacy violations in some way, but based on the party line vote breakdown experts said this is not likely.
Bid rigging charge rejected by judge
A federal judge has dismissed allegations that bidding for a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon was rigged to favor Amazon. Friday’s ruling dismissing Oracle’s claims clears the Defense Department to award the contract to one of two finalists: Amazon or Microsoft.
It will be a boon for whichever company gets to run the 10-year computing project, which the U.S. military considers vital to maintaining its technological advantage over adversaries and accelerating its use of artificial intelligence in warfare.
Oracle and IBM were eliminated during an earlier round, but Oracle persisted with a legal challenge claiming conflicts of interest.
Court of Federal Claims Judge Eric Bruggink said Friday that Oracle can’t demonstrate favoritism because it didn’t meet the project’s bidding requirements to begin with.