gawker

Gawker raises $200K to buy video of Toronto mayor allegedly smoking crack

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been having a lousy week, and it may have gotten much worse.

Gawker's "Crackstarter" campaign on Indiegogo has reached its goal of raising $200,000 to buy a drug dealer's video allegedly showing Ford smoking crack cocaine and post it online.

The gossip Web site's John Cook and journalists from The Toronto Star say they have seen footage in which Ford is smoking crack with drug dealers. … Read more

New York Web sites remain offline following Sandy

Hurricane Sandy may have passed the Mid-Atlantic region, but its effects are still being felt online.

The storm knocked out power and caused severe flooding across the Northeastern United States. New York City power companies pulled the plug on parts of lower Manhattan yesterday, shutting down Web sites without redundant servers. Many of those data centers remained down today, and power provider Con Edison said power likely won't be restored to Manhattan for about four days.

Those in Bk and Manhattan should have power back w/in 4 days. All others in areas served by overhead lines will take … Read more

NYC data centers hit by Hurricane Sandy

Power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy show why it's good to have a duplicate Web server located somewhere far away from New York City right now.

The local power company, Consolidated Edison shut down power to portions of lower Manhattan this evening in an effort to prevent damage to underground equipment.

That coincided with when Gawker.com and Gizmodo.com went offline. In a Twitter update at 4:21 p.m. PT, Gizmodo said: "We'll be back soon! There was a data center battery failure after the power went down in Lower Manhattan. Generators powering up." … Read more

Gawker writer dons pink tutu in response to Anonymous demand

Let's hope this won't become a regular demand before sources agree to speak with writers, but it did make for quite the sight as the tech world returned from the long Labor Day weekend: Gawker's Adrian Chen published a picture of himself today resplendent in a a pink tutu with a shoe on his head after the shadowy group declared in a note left on the hacker document-sharing site Pastebin the following:

to journalists: no more interviews to anyone till Adrian Chen get featured in the front page of Gawker, a whole day, with a huge picture … Read more

Path's Dave Morin: No, really, I don't lie about this stuff

Gawker published this evening an apparently damning story to further the day's drama over Path sucking down contact lists from its iPhone users.

The story says that Morin has misled us in the past about Path's use of personal data and that it is safe to assume that Morin is playing fast and loose with customer data again. The evidence is an e-mail Dave Morin wrote to Ryan Tate at Gawker in 2010, saying:

One of our core principles here is that you must have contact information for someone in order to find them on Path. Usually, you … Read more

The 404 904: Where it's safe to assume we're being sarcastic (podcast)

Robots are slowly taking over the world, and a startup in Illinois called Narrative Science is targeting journalism as the next profession to go extinct. Well, maybe just the journalists covering local youth sports and number-crunching quarterly earning reports, so we're safe for now, but let us know if they come out with a robot that can podcast and tell dirty jokes.

Not all robots are out to drive humans to obsolescence, though. We'll also report on a Japanese pet robot named Evolta training for the Hawaii triathlon. The little guy is only 20 inches tall and runs on two AA batteries, so officials are giving him 10 days to complete the 140-mile race.

After the break and a couple voice mails quizzing Wilson on high-school chemistry, we'll offer a couple pro tips on how to handle business in the office, inspired by this helpful article on Gawker. Can't give out too many details here, so check out the show today!

The 404 Digest for Episode 904

Journalism is the next victim of AI-assisted robotics. Tiny Japanese robot to tackle Ironman triathlon. Everything is new in Windows 8, including the Blue Screen of Death. Gawker tells us how to poop at work. The 404's daily bathroom break: Longboard fail like a boss.

Episode 904 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 894: Where we're touched by a tablet (podcast)

Samsclub.com finally delivered my HP TouchPad yesterday, and I can already feel the drops of regret bubbling up--listen to today's episode of The 404 Podcast before you invest in HP's next round of $99 tablets.

It's not all complaints, though--we'll also tell you what to expect from HP in the coming months, discuss the latest news in the Dept. of Justice vs. AT&T ruling, and wag our collective finger at Gawker for its unapologetic nerd-baiting.

The 404 Digest for Episode 894

HP to bring back TouchPad for last production run. Justice Department to block AT&T's T-Mobile deal. My brief OkCupid affair with a world champion Magic: The Gathering player.

Episode 894 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

HP TouchPad fire sale

Google rolls out verified profiles for Google+, Skype buys GroupMe messaging service, and HP liquidates its stock of tablets.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

iPhone criminal case gives Apple more options

Criminal charges recently filed against two men who allegedly sold a prototype iPhone to Gizmodo.com have a not-so-obvious side effect.

A successful conviction in San Mateo County will make it easier for Apple to win a civil suit against the gadget blog, if it pursues one as its lawyers threatened last year, legal experts tell CNET.

"Will the criminal case help them? Absolutely," says Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who's a former federal public defender. "They're going to learn a lot more about what happened." (See related story … Read more

Gawker may learn Apple is touchy about secrets

"Stealth mode" isn't just for start-ups or new products. For Apple, it's a way of life.

Very few technology executives guard trade secrets as determinedly as Apple CEO Steve Jobs. In a sector noted for paranoia, he stands out for his willingness to file suit against anyone disseminating information that he believes belongs solely to his company. Journalists, Apple developers, even teenagers; it doesn't matter. Apple has sued them all for exposing trade secrets.

That's why if Apple chooses to pursue a civil suit against Gawker Media, parent company of the gadget blog Gizmodo, … Read more