Adam Clark Estes, Author at Gizmodo

The NASA Engineer Who Made iPads the Future of Halloween

Two years ago, NASA engineer Mark Rober blew YouTube’s mind with a video of his Halloween costume: a hole in his chest. Or at least it looked like a hole in his chest. In fact, it was an optical illusion made possible by two iPads, a little duct tape and a lot of ingenuity. Well,…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Obamacare Cover Is Perfect

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been kind of a rough year in Washington. And it’s especially rough for one guy in particular. Freshly inaugurated and Instagram-friendly, President Obama promised a new, tech-savvy future for America. The latest cover of Bloomberg Businessweek pretty much sums up how that’s working out. By the way, if you…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

We Aren’t Doing Enough to Prepare Ourselves for Robot Love

It’s kind of a funny story—kind of. Soldiers are spending so much time with robots on the battlefield these days that they’re starting to form relationships with them. They give them names. They give them hugs, a little brotherly love. Soldiers getting attached to their robots would be funny, if it weren’t so dangerous. The…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Russia Reportedly Bugged the Goodie Bags at the G20 Summit

Sometimes, it’s fun to play a little prank on your friends. Maybe you cover a doorway with plastic wrap. Maybe you pour laxative in their coffee. Maybe you put their stapler in Jell-O. Or maybe you invite them to a nice conference and then slip a bunch of spying gadgets into their gift bags. Russia’s…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

The Dark Mail Alliance Wants to Reinvent Email as We Know It

In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, we’ve seen at least two encrypted email services close shop in the face of government scrutiny. They’re not giving up on the mission, however. In fact, these freedom fighters now say they’re coming back twice as strong and twice as committed to shutting out the NSA. The…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes

An Iranian Oil Tanker Hacked Its Own Tracking System to Avoid Detection

Lately, we’ve seen how hackers can cause havoc on the high seas, but the shenanigans have been limited to security researchers for the most part. They wanted to prove that it was possible to do things like take over a ship’s navigation system so that it doesn’t happen in real life. Welp, too late for…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Facebook Is Testing Software That Tracks Your Cursor’s Every Move

When most people hear that Facebook upgrades are on the way, they’re probably not hoping for more tracking software. But according to a new Wall Street Journal report, that’s exactly what they’re going to get. Facebook’s analytics chief Ken Rudin recently opened up to The Journal about how the social network plans to track user…

Social Media Adam Clark Estes

An Up Close Look at the East Coast Google Mystery Barge

The Google mystery barges docked near San Francisco and Portland, Maine are getting even more mysterious. We’ve seen the barge and heard the arguments about what’s inside. But news that the search giant is making government officials keep their mouths shut about them—that takes it to the next level. https://gizmodo.com/is-googles-mysterious-barge-actually-a-floating-glass-1453427108 A new report from Reuters,…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

New Yorkers Receive Junk Mail From The Future

Nowadays, junk mail is pretty run-of-the-mill. You get a credit card application here, a request for a donation there—pretty mundane stuff, really. But what happens in a few years when the world’s a little bit different? What’s the future of junk mail? The Extrapolation Factory, a New York-based studio run by Elliott P. Montgomery and…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

US Now Claims European Agencies, Not the NSA, Spied on European Leaders

Finger-pointing over the NSA’s spying habits ascends to a new level of complexity with the latest revelations of how the United States spies on foreign officials. However, U.S. officials now tell The Wall Street Journal that the phone records at the center of the surveillance scandal in Europe were actually collected by European spy agencies,…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes

Russian Authorities Seize Goods from China Implanted with “Spy” Chips

A weird thing happened in St. Petersburg last week. The Russian press reports that local officials intercepted a shipment from China that contained home appliances with “spy” microchips capable of spreading malware to wi-fi enabled devices within 200 meters. Tea kettles were apparently the chief culprit. Specific details of the dodgy shipments remain shady. It’s…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Amazon’s Kindle MatchBook Service Is Now Live

In this modern age of tablets and e-readers, it’s always a little bit tough to decide whether to buy the hardcopy of a book or just go for the e-book. Now, you don’t have to choose with the newly launched Kindle MatchBook service that offers cheap e-book versions of hardcopy books you’ve purchased on Amazon.…

Commerce Adam Clark Estes

A Bionic Material That Lets Buildings Open and Close Like a Flower

Imagine a building with a façade that opens and closes like a flower blooming. It feels like the building is alive, but in reality, it’s just inspired by life. A material that can make this happen actually does exist—it’s called Flectofin, and it’s based on a flower called the Bird of Paradise. Flectofin’s been around…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

The Syrian Electronic Army Says It’s Hacked Obama

In just latest of many head-turning exploits, the Syrian Electronic Army now says it’s broken into Barack Obama’s Twitter account and website. Indeed, the hacker organization showed images of the website’s backend and Obama campaign email accounts. While the Obama Twitter account hasn’t gone wild (as with other attacks), there is at least one tweet…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Is Google’s Mysterious Barge Actually a Floating Glass Store?

After an odd but engrossing CNET story last week, everybody’s wondering what the strange barge with ties to Google is doing docked near San Francisco. At first, it looked like the 250-foot-long structure was a next generation data center in-the-making, but CBS and CNET sources now say it’s a floating Google Glass store. Weird huh?…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Relive the ’80s and Run Windows 1.01 in Your Browser

In these smartphone-studded days, it’s easy to forget how computers worked. Once you had to run programs off of floppy disks and wait ages for everything to load. Luckily for your nostalgia, some bored developers are keeping the past alive with full-featured emulators that run in your browser. The latest from emulator-builder supreme Jeff Par…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

DARPA’s Spending $70 Million on a Brain Chip for Mentally Ill Soldiers

Picture this: In the near future, ten percent of our veterans could be walking around with chips implanted in their brains. These aren’t intended for some I, Robot-style takeover, but rather to treat conditions like PTSD and substance abuse. Sound crazy? DARPA only deals in crazy. https://gizmodo.com/darpa-is-building-a-submarine-mothership-to-launch-dron-886014691 The Pentagon’s prodigal R&D lab just announced a…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

The NSA’s Website Is Down

NSA.gov was unresponsive late Friday afternoon due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS), according to packs of Anonymous-types on Twitter. Indeed the website would not load for us when we tried, but it’s hard to know why until we get confirmation from the NSA. If it is indeed a DDoS attack on the NSA,…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

The FBI Just Scooped up $28.5 Million in Bitcoin from Silk Road

As of Friday afternoon, the FBI had managed to seize 144,000 bitcoins from Silk Road’s founder. Worth some $28.5 million in current exchange rates, that’s the largest ever seizure of the cryptocurrency. But based on the Bitcoin trail uncovered in recent weeks, over $50 million could still be missing. https://gizmodo.com/silk-road-kingpin-apparently-hid-a-stash-of-80-million-1441291682 To be more specific, the…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

This Graphene-Coated Silicon Power Cell Signals a Battery-Free Future

Imagine a future without batteries. But in the same future, your cell phone charges in minutes and stays charged for weeks. Thanks to the world’s first silicon power cell, this future might not be so far away—and graphene is helping us get there. A team of engineers at Vanderbilt just built such a device. Their…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Adam Clark Estes

The NASA Engineer Who Made iPads the Future of Halloween

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Obamacare Cover Is Perfect

We Aren’t Doing Enough to Prepare Ourselves for Robot Love

Russia Reportedly Bugged the Goodie Bags at the G20 Summit

The Dark Mail Alliance Wants to Reinvent Email as We Know It

An Iranian Oil Tanker Hacked Its Own Tracking System to Avoid Detection

Facebook Is Testing Software That Tracks Your Cursor’s Every Move

An Up Close Look at the East Coast Google Mystery Barge

New Yorkers Receive Junk Mail From The Future

US Now Claims European Agencies, Not the NSA, Spied on European Leaders

Russian Authorities Seize Goods from China Implanted with “Spy” Chips

Amazon’s Kindle MatchBook Service Is Now Live

A Bionic Material That Lets Buildings Open and Close Like a Flower

The Syrian Electronic Army Says It’s Hacked Obama

Is Google’s Mysterious Barge Actually a Floating Glass Store?

Relive the ’80s and Run Windows 1.01 in Your Browser

DARPA’s Spending $70 Million on a Brain Chip for Mentally Ill Soldiers

The NSA’s Website Is Down

The FBI Just Scooped up $28.5 Million in Bitcoin from Silk Road

This Graphene-Coated Silicon Power Cell Signals a Battery-Free Future

Artemis 2 Live Updates: Humanity’s Epic Return to the Moon 🔴

NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission Blasts Off

Disney’s Robot Olaf Dying Is the Funniest Thing to Happen in 2026

Kia’s EV3 Is Headed to the US This Year With Up to 320 Miles of Range

This Is the Way to Lego’s April Releases

Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI

Amazon Facilities in Bahrain Hit Again as Iran Follows Through on Threat, Report Says

Why the PS6 Handheld Will Matter More Than the PS6

DNA Study Casts Even More Doubt on Shroud of Turin’s True Origin

Sam Witwer Is Ready for Maul’s Moment

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?