This article has been cross-posted from our partner site, Technologizer.
When I watched the video interviews with three “true-life” Galaxy Tab users that Samsung showed at its CTIA event, I was observant enough to figure out (with the help of about six minutes of Google research) that two of the users were actors and the other one works for a film-production company that counts Samsung among its clients. But I didn’t notice or detail every oddity about the them. Folks who are discussing my story on all this, both in the comments and elsewhere on the Web, are having fun pointing out other curious things about the interviews, such as the fact that “leading New York real-estate CEO Joseph Kolinski” raves about the 8.9″ Galaxy Tab even though the only 8.9″ Tabs that Samsung itself had on hand at CTIA were non-working models.
Phil Earnhardt watched the YouTube version of Samsung’s CTIA event very carefully. The interviews open with fake magazine covers about the “interview” subjects…
Which open to simulated magazine spreads on the subjects…
The pages flip by in a jiffy, by Phil was apparently interested enough to hit pause and zoom in, so he could reader the text on the real-state CEO interview. (As numerous people have noticed, it identifies him as Joseph Korinski even though he’s called Joseph Kolinski elsewhere, and seems to be played by an actor named…Joseph Kolinski.)
Here’s a fuzzy-blow up:
Phil even figured out that the text was lifted from a review of the original Galaxy Tab. One that wasn’t glowing–for instance, the text that Samsung’s video producers lifted says that the Tab is “no where near as polished and complete” as the original iPad.
When Phil quoted the review, it sounded familiar. As well it should have: I wrote it. It’s the piece I did for TIME last November.
The “business magazine” that “interviewed” Kolinksi/Korinski has a TIME-like red ribbon around its cover; perhaps whoever was responsible for mocking it up decided that it would be appropriate to, um, borrow words from TIME to fill it.
I’m amused by this twist. But now I’m more befuddled then ever. Let’s see: Neither Joseph Kolinski nor Joseph Korinski is a real leading New York real-estate tycoon. But Joseph Kolinski is a real successful New York actor. And while the words in his magazine-interview text aren’t his own, they are real. It’s just that they’re mine…
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