Adrian Chen, Author at Gizmodo

Get Divorced in Three Simple Text Messages

Something like half of all marriages end in divorce in the US. But imagine if we had the kind of system they’ve got in Tajikistan: There, husbands can divorce their wives by simply sending them a text message that says “Taloq taloq taloq” (Divorce divorce divorce.) Apparently, a growing number of Tajik men are using…

Tech News Adrian Chen Apr 27

The Friendster Apocalypse Is Upon Us

The thrice-obsolete social networking service Friendster is deleting all user content next month. Woe is us! Er… woe is us who still have a Friendster account. So, woe is twelve-to-fifteen people? This day was foretold by mad .gif-prophets in the dark Geocities past. On May 31st, “Friendster will move to wipe out all photos, blogs,…

Social Media Adrian Chen Apr 26

Mother Updated Facebook Before Drowning Herself and Her Kids

A little less than 30 minutes before purposefully driving her minivan off a pier with her four children inside, Lashanda Armstrong updated her Facebook status from her Blackberry: “I’m sorry everyone forgive me please for what I’m gonna do… This is it!!!” Armstrong and three of her children—Landon Pierre, 5; Lance Pierre, 2; and 11-month-old…

Social Media Adrian Chen Apr 14

YouTube Prankster Gets Two Months In Jail

Remember Evan Emory? The 21-year-old from Muskegon, Michigan was facing 20 years in prison for manufacturing child porn for a YouTube comedy video. He got 60 days in jail for the prank. http://gawker.com/5763674/singer-faces-20-years-in-prison-for-youtube-prank-on-kids Emory posted a comedy video to YouTube edited to make it appear that he was singing a sexually explicit song to a…

Tech News Adrian Chen Apr 13

Nobody Actually Likes Your Brand’s Stupid Facebook Page

What could be a more powerful marketing tool than Facebook, fostering meaningful engagement with customers and broadcasting their every purchase to friends and family? Actually, just about everything. Facebook sucks for marketing. A new study by Forrester Research found that maintaining a Facebook presence is less effective at drumming up business than plain old email…

Social Media Adrian Chen Apr 7

Scientists Grow an Eye in a Petri Dish

A Japanese research team has successfully grown a “rudimentary” mouse eye in a petri dish using stem cells. This has many implications for future research and curing blindness. Above is a time-lapse video of the stem sells spontaneously organizing into an “optic cup”—the precursor to an eye. Now they need to grow a little pair…

Tech News Adrian Chen Apr 7

eHarmony.com Hacked Just In Time for Valentine’s Day

According to security expert Brian Krebs, the dating site eHarmony.com has been hacked. Krebs found a hacker offering up email addresses and user databases to eHarmony for $2,000 on an underground message board. Turns out the guy who perpetrated the hack was the same one who recently broke into dating site Plenty of Fish. So,…

Privacy & Security Adrian Chen Feb 10

Ex-Girlfriend Gets Revenge by Turning Boyfriend Into a Meme

It’s a story as old as time. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl break up. Girl gets revenge by turning boy into a humiliating meme. This appears to be what happened to poor Jack Weppler. So, this story has been shooting around the blogosphere: A kid named Jack Weppler broke up with his girlfriend and…

Tech News Adrian Chen Feb 5

Pictures of Julian Assange’s Famous Leaky Condom Leaked

The Swedish rape and sexual molestation investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange hinges in part on a broken condom. Did Assange tear it on purpose? Pictures of that fateful condom have now been leaked, along with the entire police report. Here are pictures of the split condom that started Nobel Peace Prize nominee Julian Assange’s…

Tech News Adrian Chen Feb 3

T-Pain Got a Facebook ‘Like’ Button Tattoo

Rapper T-Pain introduced this new tattoo he got in Hawaii with a tweet: “I think this ones pretty sweet, unless facebook shuts down soon 0_o”. That’s what the guy who tattooed MySpace’s Tom on his back said in 2002. It kind of makes sense, this “like” button tattoo, if you consider the phenomenon of bad-tattoo-as-meme…

Social Media Adrian Chen Jan 28

Weed-Firing Catapult Discovered at U.S.-Mexico Border

There’s not much to add to this AP story: “Pot-firing catapult found at Arizona-Mexico border”. It’s a catapult. It fires pot. National Guard troops spied on drug smugglers using it to shoot marijuana over the border, then seized it. Here’s a spy video of the pot being catapulted by smugglers, taken on Friday evening. And…

Tech News Adrian Chen Jan 27

Cybercrime Blogger Resurfaces After Mysterious Disappearance

Bulgarian cybercrime blogger Dancho Danchev mysteriously vanished a few weeks ago, worrying his colleagues and the Internet. He’s back! But what happened to him? According to one report, he was confined to a psychiatric hospital. http://gawker.com/5733961/cybercrime-blogger-vanishes-after-finding-tracking-device-in-his-bathroom “Catching up in progress… inbox looks pretty messy” Danchev tweeted today—his first tweet since October. So, that’s a relief.…

Tech News Adrian Chen Jan 21

World’s Most Needlessly Complex Timekeeping Device

[Workers test the Times Square New Years Eve Ball—the one that drops right before you blackout and wake up the next morning naked, straddling one of the lions in front of the Central Library. Image via Getty.]

Tech News Adrian Chen Dec 31

Robbery with a Giant Stick Is Way Funnier Than It Should Be

If you were a convenience store clerk faced with a robber wielding a comically large stick as a weapon, you probably wouldn’t think it was too comical. But after the fact, the security camera footage is pretty ridiculous. Click to view So, this robber has apparently decided to use an entire tree as a weapon.…

Tech News Adrian Chen Dec 30

Navy Helicopter Pilots Cause $505,000 in Damage for Cool Facebook Pictures

Remember that video of Navy pilots dunking helicopters in Lake Tahoe? Turns out they did it to take Facebook photos for their squad’s page. The stunt resulted in $505,000 in damage to the helicopters, but neither crew was punished. https://gizmodo.com/navy-helicopter-pilots-caught-hot-doggin-on-youtube-5647341

Tech News Adrian Chen Dec 23

Watch the Metrodome Collapse from the Inside

The giant inflatable roof of Minneapolis’ Metrodome stadium collapsed this morning under the weight of heavy snowfall. Here’s some apocalyptic video taken inside the stadium as the roof tears open and snow cascades onto the turf. Oh come on, they could still play that Vikings-Giants game tomorrow. Snowball fight! [via SB Nation]

Tech News Adrian Chen Dec 12

Google Pays Couple $1 for Street View Trespassing

In 2008, Pennsylvania couple Aaron and Christine Boring sued Google after a Street View car took pictures of their house. Now, they’ve been awarded $1 and Google is officially labeled a trespasser. The Borings (yes, yes, haw haw) live on a “clearly marked” private road near Pittsburgh, PA. Two years ago, they sued Google for…

Tech News Adrian Chen Dec 3

Study Says Wi-Fi Makes Trees Sick

Wi-Fi, sweet deliverer of information and porn, may be killing trees. A study by a Dutch university suggests that Wi-Fi radiation causes weird abnormalities in trees. This is disturbing, as we love both Wi-Fi and trees. The dutch city of Alphen aan den Rijn commissioned the study five years ago to figure out why their…

io9 Adrian Chen Nov 20

Now You Can Pay to Have Your Facebook Profile Made Into a Real Book

If you view your Facebook status updates, wall posts and pictures as precious memories, you have a problem (besides the obvious mental one): How do you keep them from disappearing into Facebook’s overwhelming data-maw? Enter Ninuku Archivist. For $24 a year, Ninuku Archivist automatically downloads your personal data from Facebook each month and sorts it…

Social Media Adrian Chen Nov 18

Old White Airline Passenger Turns Into Young Asian Man Mid-Flight

Yes, both of these pictures are of the same guy. To the right is how he looked when he boarded Air Canada flight AC018 from Hong Kong to Vancouver. The picture on the left is what he turned into. According to CNN, the Canada Border Services Agency issued an alert about this “unbelievable case of…

Tech News Adrian Chen Nov 5

Adrian Chen

Get Divorced in Three Simple Text Messages

The Friendster Apocalypse Is Upon Us

Mother Updated Facebook Before Drowning Herself and Her Kids

YouTube Prankster Gets Two Months In Jail

Nobody Actually Likes Your Brand’s Stupid Facebook Page

Scientists Grow an Eye in a Petri Dish

eHarmony.com Hacked Just In Time for Valentine’s Day

Ex-Girlfriend Gets Revenge by Turning Boyfriend Into a Meme

Pictures of Julian Assange’s Famous Leaky Condom Leaked

T-Pain Got a Facebook ‘Like’ Button Tattoo

Weed-Firing Catapult Discovered at U.S.-Mexico Border

Cybercrime Blogger Resurfaces After Mysterious Disappearance

World’s Most Needlessly Complex Timekeeping Device

Robbery with a Giant Stick Is Way Funnier Than It Should Be

Navy Helicopter Pilots Cause $505,000 in Damage for Cool Facebook Pictures

Watch the Metrodome Collapse from the Inside

Google Pays Couple $1 for Street View Trespassing

Study Says Wi-Fi Makes Trees Sick

Now You Can Pay to Have Your Facebook Profile Made Into a Real Book

Old White Airline Passenger Turns Into Young Asian Man Mid-Flight

All Hell Breaks Loose in a Tease of the End of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2

Artemis 2 Day 6: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

NASA Administrator Says Odds of Finding Alien Life Are ‘Pretty High’

The ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ Movie Did Rosalina Dirty

Wisconsin Remains a Gooning Sanctuary State After Governor Rejects Age Verification Bill

The Artemis 2 Astronauts Are Now Farther From Earth Than Any Have Gone Before

The Imperial Credits From the ‘Andor’ Aldhani Heist Are Up for Auction, Which We’re Sure Is Not a Commentary on Capitalism at All

Check Your Medicine Cabinet for These Eye Drop Bottles After Millions Recalled

Artemis 2 Astronauts’ Epic iPhone Photos Are All… Selfies?

OpenAI Releases Its Vague Vision for Reorganizing Society Around Superintelligence

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

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Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

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