1. My information must have come from a Crestron press release and Crestron must have supplied the photograph; therefore, it was OK to "rewrite" my original story. First, my story did not come from a press release. In fairness, David did rewrite some of the story -- the part where he added grammatical and factual errors.
Firstly your copy is from a Crestron press release, Crestron has supplied the image and we have rewritten the story. The facts in the story are the same or are you now saying that only you can report the specifications for this device.
We work under Australian Copyright law. Your laws allow CEO’s of Companies like Dell and Intel to carry on running a Company despite the fact that they have engaged in bribery. In Australia our ACCC would have had these directors suspended. Then again your economy is stuffed and ours is booming.
David Richards, everybody's favorite CE plagiarist, reviewed the MusicMonitor computer speakers from Bose in 2007. But the review is still featured on David's Smarthouse home page, so it's still fair game for lampooning.
Well, who could dispute that? According to David's reviews, these little guys actually improve the more you listen to them. Is it magic?
David writes:
After playing the Bose demo DVD I then moved to an array of music from classical to rock to good old jazz and with each track the performance just got better and better.
Likewise, his review just gets better and better as you read on ...
In sound labs around the world engineers are going to be pulling their hair out saying "Why didn't we think of this for small sound speakers".
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What can one say about a product that is perfect except eat your heart out B&O.
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These [$400] speakers are as good as a $2,000 pair of speakers from a high end Hi Fi manufacturer.
Our friend David Richards, proprietor of Smarthouse and Channel News in Australia, is such a sneaky little devil. He takes our exclusive story on the new Crestron UFO-4X remote, throws in some grammatical and numerical errors, and claims it as his own.
The photo he steals from us, however, is completely unadulterated and, as usual, completely unattributed to CEPro.com.
His story is below, with my highlights in yellow and commentary in red.
Crestron Takes On The iPad With New Touch Track Pad
By David Richards | Sunday | 25/07/2010
As the Apple iPad starts to put pressure on control devices from home automation manufacturers Creston has come out with a new 6 button track pad remote control device.Interesting, I count 21 buttons. Did he mean 6-inch remote, as I wrote in my story. He needs a better copy editor. Get it? copy editor?
The UFO-4X has a virtual keyboard for entering URLs, passwords, and content selection, [sic] it can also be transformed into a mouse, so users can navigate their way around both content and a home's remote control services. Shaped like a flying saucer the device sits on a small stand for charging. At least David added something of his own – that the UFO has a dock. I never mentioned that in my story! But then, I guess he inferred that from the image he stole from our site without credit.
The device which sits on a wireless network can also be used to access Web pages, using the same taps and double-taps as a standard desktop track pad. I believe my own wording is a little more elegant:With the UFO controller, users can finger effortlessly through Web pages, using the same taps and double-taps as a standard desktop trackpad.
Users can also access PC [sic] on the network, as long as they're running Crestron's CEN-WIN touch panel HID Emulator software. Yeah, what he said. I mean, what I said: Users also can navigate any PC on the network, as long as they’re running Crestron’s CEN-WIN Touchpanel HID Emulator software.
Multi touch functionality lets users flip through music libraries, scroll through TV channels and radio stations and select control apps. Hmm, sounds familiar: Multitouch functionality lets users flip through music libraries, scroll through TV channels and radio stations and select control apps.
The RF unit operates over a 100 metre radius. It can be used in both landscape and portrait mode, adjusting automatically due to a built-in tilt sensor. Flash is supported for dynamic graphics. Not quite, David. I wrote 200 feet, which translates to about 61 meters. Are we over-compensating for something? Oh yes, and there’s the plagiarizing: The RF unit is good for about 200 feet indoors. It can be used in both landscape and portrait mode, adjusting automatically thanks to a built-in tilt sensor. Flash is supported for dynamic graphics.
By the way, yes, I made this discovery all by myself. I cut out the story to blog about the Bandaid, and when I went to the online story, I noticed the Photoshop magic.
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That sure looks like a Bandaid on Ashley Hawks's left leg. Ordinarily, that's nothing to gasp about, but this is no ordinary photo. It accompanies an article about Hawks's pageant-coaching business, Style & Grace.
Style and Grace? I should say not!
For goodness sakes, Hawks is a model who "works runways all over the country." And her mother is a former pageant queen who "was always on her case about posture and manners."
Apparently, the lessons didn't take.
Flaunting a bandaged leg in the pages of the esteemed St. Paul Pioneer Press is most definitely not good manners. What kind of message does it send to Miss Minnesota hopefuls who study at Hawks's school of beauty and etiquette?
First Bandaids, then what? Unpolished nails?
Hold on there, Missy ... Boo-boo meets Photoshop?
But wait, there's more.
In the online version of "Pageant coaches give beauties that crowning touch," there's no Bandaid on Hawks's leg! Could it be that the online editors noticed the gaffe that apparently eluded both Hawks and the photographer, Scott Takushi?
Ah the wonders of Photoshop and second chances.
I can now picture the "tall, gorgeous, graceful and polite" Hawks as she was meant to be.
She will forever inspire me to "form a concise opinion on feminism and to avoid placing a hand on the widest part of [my] hip."
Standing at a podium in a muddy construction site, Obama celebrated the groundbreaking of an advanced car battery factory that the White House predicts will produce 300 permanent jobs. It was his fourth battery-related trip as president, and it came as the White House makes an aggressive push to tell what one senior official called "the battery story" — the tale of a small piece of technology that could affect daily life and spur jobs if properly nurtured. ...
But the administration's $2.4 billion investment in the development of batteries and other electric-car technology in the U.S. is an enormous bet on a product that has yet to gain broad commercial success. Major manufacturers have yet to sell electric cars in the U.S. Hybrids, though they have been around for a decade, represent less than 1 percent of the nation's roughly 250 million-vehicle fleet.
"The battery story is highly questionable," said Menahem Anderman, the founder and chief executive of Total Battery Consulting. "Basically, there's really no proven market, neither electric vehicle nor plug-in hybrid electric vehicle — and there's really no battery company in the United States that has a verified product."
Although U.S. battery makers could export their products, the global market is glutted, according to analysts. Anderman said global capacity to build car batteries in 2014 will be three times greater than demand that year.
The Stéphane Rolland watermelon-parachute dress (left) and the Georges Hobeika hula-bow number (right) are two examples of haute couture best viewed in two dimensions – at the very most.
Yet, Rolland and Hobeika are two of the designers featured in Looping Productions’ forthcoming 3D fashion show, which promises to make “the world’s most beautiful clothing and accessories … even more stunning!"
Looping teamed with Xpand 3D to film cadaverous models floating down the runway during Paris Haute Couture Week, July 5-8. Select TV viewers can enjoy the spectacle later this month when it is broadcast in 3D somewhere, somehow – the press release doesn’t say.
What it does say is: “At XpanD, fashion is a religion—we aim to not only make 3D content look fabulous, but to make the people wearing our glasses look fabulous as well.”
To prove its point, Xpand includes an image of “stylish” pink 3D glasses, noting, “Now, more than ever, XpanD 3D is truly ‘in vogue!’”
