Nokia Apologizes For Misleading Lumia 920 Ad 233
hypnosec writes "During Nokia's press event for the launch of its flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone — the Lumia 920 — the Finnish company made available some promotional materials wherein there was a video showcasing PureView's main feature: optical image stabilization (OIS) but, it turns out these ads were faked following which Nokia has issued an official apology. In the video was 'a reflection that revealed the footage wasn't shot on a Lumia 920, but a regular camera inside a white van.' If we go to 0:27 of the video, a reflection of a white van keeping pace with the girl is seen whereby a person is holding a DSLR camera. Fast forward to 0:48 of the video and you will clearly see the shadow of a DSLR hooked to the swing. In its apology through a blog post Nokia confirms that the video 'was not shot with a Lumia 920.'"
Too bad... (Score:2, Interesting)
The camera shots are fake as well [pcgerms.com] as the videos...
Re:The damage is already done (Score:5, Interesting)
A better option would have been to avoid publishing misleading ads...
You are quite right, but as a former Nokia shareholder (got out earlier this year at a big loss) I can assure you that Nokia got into its current woeful state by running out of "better options" some years ago.
Contrast this with the demo for Google Glass (Score:2, Interesting)
Contrast this with the demo for Google Glass -- done live, with multiple people, skydiving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7TB8b2t3QE
Re:surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in most civilised countries in the world, advertisements CAN'T lie. That's pretty much the problem.
The other side of the coin is whether people THINK something that the advert IMPLIES but doesn't actually say. If you're stupid enough to fall for those tricks, then you really will believe that advertising lies all the time.
That's not to say that lies don't happen. It's just an entirely different kind of "lie" to what the average person would think.
Watching the shopping channels is entertainment on a dull night for no other reason than spotting the holes and flaws in the truths they tell (Do it - assume they are 100% true and then see how they can say those things without telling a lie, it's quite fun to do. Do the same with magicians, psychics, etc. and notice the same tricks happening).
Last night on QVC: "This ceramic frying pan can cook at a hotter heat than any metal pan on the market". Well, yes. It probably can. But I wouldn't EVER cook at those temperatures and surely my gas stovetop or, indeed, my frying pan would melt trying to do that before I need worry about buying a ceramic one".
"This pan wipes clean with one swipe" - yes, it does. Because you've got hot, fresh, watery/oily sauce that you poured onto it just a second ago and a huge tough man scraping a heavy, clean, damp dishcloth over after scraping off the sauce with a metal implement.
"While the traditional non-stick pan is much harder to clean" - no, because the over-smiley female presenter is hardly pushing, with a dry, small, flimsy dishcloth (and no metal implement) on a pre-dried stain of (presumably) the same sauce that probably has been cooked on and dried for hours.
Completely truthful. Absolutely 100% misleading. There's a difference.
Re:surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically lying in adverts is rife and always will be and I'm kinda surprised Nokia is being dragged through the mud for this when most times advertisers don't even get caught.
Re:The damage is already done (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't claim they were using a "larger prototype", they simply confess that it's not a 920 at all.
I think maybe I read it wrong. They said the images were shot with a prototype and scaled down.
Those ads are Siri, albeit Siri at its absolute, unlikely-to-actually-occur-in-reality best.... Here, Nokia's not even using a 920 at all. It's ... misleading in a "doesn't actually exist at all" way.
How is "unlikely-to-actually-occur-in-reality best" much different or generally less misleading compared to "doesn't actually exist at all"? Nokia 920 has optical image stabilization that improves image quality. This is demonstrated. It's probably not as great as a DSLR but it does what they say. Siri is an AI that responds to voice commands. It doesn't perform exactly like the video but it does what they say. Apple shows iPhone downloading at faster than network speeds over 3G. Of course it doesn't do it just like that, much slower in fact, but it does what they say.
We're sorry. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia's woes (Score:5, Interesting)
Why did Nokia end up in this mess?
They had Symbian which made them a lot of money but was getting stale with UX. So Nokia started making a new Linux-based OS, which was called Maemo. Then, for some unknown reason they partnered with Intel and Maemo became Meego.
Meego was getting delayed.
Meanwhile Nokia did publish a Maemo phone, the N900. This was quite an OK phone, and got good reviews. Nokia was back on track.
Enter Stephen Elop as the new CEO. First thing the Microsoft alumni does is destroy the revenue stream from Symbian phones with his burning platform speech. Next thing he does is destroy any hope of any future by killing Meego.
Third thing he does is announce a partnership with Microsoft which means the in-house software development essentially has to cease. At this point Nokia has been beaten to a comatose state. Talent is bleeding out of the company.
Questions: Why did Nokia self-destruct its future? Who did Paul Allen meet in Helsinki on his boat, was this where the deal to trash Nokia was made? What is Shell chairman Jorma Ollila's (ex-Nokia CEO, Nokia chairman of the board) role in all this?
We know the result of all this: Nokia is nearly dead, ready to be given the final rites by Microsoft, which will devour Nokia's patents. Nearly all mobile operating systems are on the hands of a few North American companies. Strategically this makes a lot of sense to the USA, as it is showing a tendency to snoop on everyone's private data regardless of who and where they are. What better way to do this than to control the OS in a device which is with each person almost all the time.
This makes me think the decision to destroy Nokia was in some way dictated by US interests. Why the Finnish government accepted all this is beyond me - they must have gotten something valuable in return.
So what did the Finns get?
One thing I guess they got was a promise to become a big player in the content industry (games) area. Just look at the hype around Rovio and their Angry Birds. I doubt the rise of content industry in a narrow sector would be enough to offset the loss of an entire strategically important R&D cluster. Therefore I think this was not enough.
But what more could it be? Promise to become a member of NATO without "officially" becoming a member of NATO?
Maybe instead of a carrot, a stick was used. But what was the stick?
I am appalled that the Finnish government with the industry movers and shakers have basically eaten popcorn and watched the show without doing anything. Not so many years ago a lot of tax money was constantly funneled into Nokia's research projects. It was the pride of the whole nation, and this was mirrored in the behaviour of the government and the industry. Now the same clowns are watching a whole high-tech cluster vaporize in thin air without doing ANYTHING.
And lo and behold, Samsung will be next.