Gizmodo: Prank

Low-Tech Bluetooth Hack Puts Callers to Your Cellphone On Infinite hold

Kit Eaton — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:45:00 EDT

This video demos what an Instructables team call a "quick down and dirty hack" that uses a Bluetooth headset to prank callers to your cellphone with an infinite hold pattern. It involves nothing more sophisticated than a cheapo Bluetooth headset, a few components, a modicum of soldering, and some amusing tunes and message creation. Your callers will then be treated to a "you are in a XX minute queue" message and your choice of irritating music. Now this wouldn't amuse me: It would piss me off, as I've listened to enough hold muzak for real... but your mileage may vary. Check out the Instructable if you want to DIY. [Instructables]

Homemade Conan the Barbarian Booby Trap Almost Stabs Verizon Agent to Death

matt buchanan — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:55:00 EDT

Long Island is a dangerous place, filled with bad accents and crazy people wandering around, like Verizon technicians. Eric Stetz knows mere deadbolts won't keep them out. No, you've gotta get medieval, Conan the Barbarian style. So he built a booby trap out of a massive knife, crutch and elastic trip-cord to poke intruders in the head. To death. Like the Verizon guy scheduled to visit his apartment.

Luckily for Mr. Verizon, the building's super dropped by to make sure everything was cool, and managed to avoid being chop sueyed with his ninja super skills as the knife snapped at him like cobra when he opened the door. When arrested, Eric asked the cops "Did anyone get hurt with my knives? I wish they did." Since they didn't, the court thought it was cool to release this dude on bail. I love this country. [Newsday via Gothamist]

USB CapsLocker Is Pure Punishment For Data Entry Clerks

Jason Chen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:45:00 EDT

This USB CapsLocker is slightly less cruel than the phantom keystroker, but the base idea is the same. Plug the USB device into one of the back ports of someone's computer and it will randomly hit the caps lock key at intervals between 30 seconds to eight minutes. The best part is how cheap and relatively easy it is to make, meaning that you can replace the ones you lose after your victims discover and break the old ones. [Macetech via Everything USB]

How to Make All of the Phones in Your Office Ring Simultaneously (and Get Away With It)

Sean Fallon — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:00:14 EDT

The guys at Maximum PC have put together a hack using Skype that will allow you to make all of the phones in your office ring simultaneously—and the best part is that you will be able to keep your job when all is said and done. All you need to do in order to pull off this prank is $10 sitting in your Skype account and the time necessary to gather up phone numbers and set up a conference call. Then just start the call and watch the chaos ensue.

With April Fools' just around the corner, this could be a funny prank if done properly. Plus, Maximum PC is offering up three other variants on this trick for those looking to do something even more elaborate—and the best part is that it can be completely anonymous. When the victims glance at their caller ID to find out who the asshole is, they will be frustrated to find that the caller is unknown. That means you can quietly take pride in the fact that you are that asshole—without suffering the consequences. [Maximum PC]

Giant HTC is Just a Joke, Just Like We Thought

Kit Eaton — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:47:32 EST

So it turns out that the huge HTC Magnum actually is, of course, a prank cooked up by the guys at Pocketpt in Portugal as a Carnival stunt. Built from an HTC X7500 and a boring old HP monitor, it seems it got a lot more attention on the intertubes than originally intended. [Pocketlint]

FoneJacker: Naughty Tech Support Prank (NSFW)

Jason Chen — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:20:18 EDT

Fonejacker, or Kayvan Novak, has a new entry in his prank call series where he prank-calls a tech support line to try to figure out how to play back a video that may or may not be naughty. He uses a Mac Genius as a stand- in this time, and one of our readers tells us that he actually knows who the guy is and showed him the video. For more, see his previous videos. [FoneJacker]

Fonejacker Prank Calls A UK Electronics Store

kthompson — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:01:04 EDT

Kayvan Novak probably isn't a name you're too familiar with. If you recognized the name as the guy who played Arash in the film Syriana, stop reading this post and go try out for Jeopardy or something. For those of you still here, Kayvan has a new series kicking off in the UK called Fonejacker, a run-of-the-mill prank-call show that looks like it may rise above its failed predecessors (think Comedy Central's "Crank Yankers"). In this clip, he plays a linguistically challenged foreigner trying to buy some electronics, most notably a "Joovcuh Doovdé player" and a "Joovcuh Lookada Tuv." Don't get it? You will. [Fonejacker via Nothing To Do With Arbroath]

Leaked iPhone Architecture: The Best April Fool You Missed

Noah Robischon — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:51:54 EDT

A "leaked" document that supposedly shows the iPhone's OSX architecture has surfaced via the document sharing website Scribd. Wired's Gadget Lab is one of several blogs that is running with the story today. It's an extremely subtle and nuanced fake by Charles Ying. How do we know?

Maybe the first hint is the date stamp, which is April 1 in Unix. A few of the other components are based on info that emerged after the intro of the Apple TV. All the mysteries are revealed on Charles Ying's blog.

Ying, a former software architect with Openwave who is now working with the startup Pixverse, uploaded the file yesterday morning and posted it on Digg as a test to see who would pick it up. Some former Apple engineers saw it too (they were in the midst of their own prank, a joke that Safari was being shut down) and helped propagate the joke. –Noah Robischon

The iPhone Aloha Architecture Overview is .... [Satine.org]

Sega's Horror Summer Toilet Roll

Brian Lam — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:31:49 EDT

I love Sega. But we all know that most Sega hardware will eventually be shit canned. Sorry, Dreamcast.
Brilliant, than that Sega Japan is launching the prank toilet paper holder market with this electronic TP-core.
Horror Summer Toilet Roll spins as you make a grab for the three ply quilted, triggering loud shouts and explosions. I presume in Japanese. Which makes it about 10x as funny. But only the first time around.–Brian Lam

Horror Summer Toilet Roll [Kotaku]

Best Buy Invaded By Legion Of Blue-Shirted Pranksters

gizmodo.com — Mon, 01 May 2006 12:41:37 EDT

Whether your gadget-buying experiences at Best Buy have been pleasure or pain (ours have tended towards the latter), you're probably familiar with the uniform their employees wear: royal blue shirt, khaki pants, black shoes. New York-based prankster group Improv Everywhere decided that for their latest mission, they'd get about fifty of their operatives to dress like Best Buy sales staff and invade the Chelsea branch. Customers were confused, some sales staff were supportive while others got upset, and predictably both management and security went apoplectic. IE Agent Firth's conversation with one agitated Best Buy staffer:

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"You're kicking me out?"
"No, I'm not saying that."
"Ok, then I can stay?"
"You're not buying anything."
"I'm waiting for my friend, just watching TV while I wait."
"I'm asking you to leave.""Are you kicking me out?"
"No."
This repeated in various versions until eventually he conceded with, "Fine, just do what you have to do." Agent Todd also overheard him add, "Have fun," as he walked away.

Lots of photos, videos and stories from the Best Buy mission operatives on their site, as well as links to previous pranks, our all-time favorite of which is Even Better Than The Real Thing.

Photo by Chad Nicholson

Mission: Best Buy [Improv Everywhere, via The Morning News]
Improv Everywhere Best Buy [crnphoto on Flickr]