British Newspaper Confuses Deus Ex With Real Life

from the augmented-fact-checking-needed dept

If you dig through a Techdirt search on augmentation, you'll return links for our ongoing Daily Dirt pieces and some interesting stuff about augmented reality. That kind of thing is all well and good, but fans of cyberpunk thrill-rides like me have something different in mind for ourselves when it comes to augments. We want the good stuff. You know, implanted HUD vision, mechanical servos in our leg joints that will make us jump like LeBron, maybe a gun-arm or two so we can savagely disperse justice on unsuspecting bad guys. Unfortunately, very little in the way of improvement in these fields has occurred.

Until now. I bring you the British tabloid, The Sun, and their amazing story about an augmented mechanical eyeball that, if associated material is to be believed, allows you to see through walls, color-codes friends and enemies, and permits telescopic zoom. Here's the reference from The Sun.


Oops. See, part of the reason that Sarif Industries' cybernetic implants are still in their infancy is that the company doesn't exist. Sarif Industries is a fictitious company from a cyberpunk video game, Deus Ex, set in a future Detroit. As Kotaku notes:

Granted, the folks behind The Sun don't really care that much about nonsense like "accuracy" or "making sure the news they report isn't actually from a video game." And yes, perhaps eyeball implants will indeed be common in 50 years. But they probably won't come from Sarif Industries.
Thank science for all the fact-checking our brick and mortar newspapers do. On the other hand, seriously, how much fact-checking is required to determine that no biomedical company producing what would be a ground-breaking achievement in augmentation exists in Detroit? I recognize that the Sun has a bit of a reputation for skipping out on pesky little things like "facts" in its reporting, but rewriting video games as fact seems to take things to a different level.

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Filed Under: deus ex, journalism, real life, tabloids, the sun, uk, video games
Companies: the sun


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 5:50am

    That's nothing, I hear there's already walking and talking robots that act as law enforcement now.

    Only, some bad guy created a nasty virus known as the Sigma virus, and now a bunch of those robots want to kill all humans and make earth a world for just robots! We're fortunate we have the robots Mega Man X and Zero on our side to always stop their evil plans however!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    SolkeshNaranek (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 5:51am

    Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    the Sun has a bit of a reputation for skipping out on pesky little things like "facts" in its reporting

    So this "newspaper" is operated by Mike Rogers, Dianne Feinstein, James Clapper, and Keith Alexander?

    Sounds about right.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Nathan F (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 5:51am

    They most likely did a fact check. It just started and ended at www.sarifindustries.com

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    RyanNerd (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:09am

    Perhaps

    The journalists were trained in North Korea.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:10am

    perhaps this is just a long running gag about how crappy the real media is these days...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:13am

    Re: Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    Oh. I thought it was another Rupert Murdoch production

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    NoahVail (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:18am

    This deserves the same ridicule that US Press does, when it parrots US Gov hysteria about Cyber Threats with no analysis.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:20am

    It was a tabloid newspaper...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:23am

    This piece went wrong when it described the sun as a news papers, it is not a news paper, its toilet paper. Please correct.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    PaulT (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:31am

    Re: Re: Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    Yep, if you want facts you just have to note that this is one of Murdoch's rags. No need to make up any other reasons why this might not be actual news other than SOP for that waste of trees.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:33am

    Re:

    Next week's headline: US firm Sarif Industries website defaced in bold hacker attack.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:38am

    Re:

    Reploids, damnit. Reploids!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:47am

    Re: Re: Re: Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    @ "PaulT"
    Yep, if you want facts you just have to note that this is one of Murdoch's rags.


    So you're saying Techdirt, especially Timmy, feeds on Murdoch's crap. Good one.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 6:58am

    Deus Ex is a great game that every gamer should experience. It has a truly excellent story. The story is very well thought out. You have nano-augmentations and super intelligent AI, but other than that, it isn't terribly over-the-top.

    An interesting game-play bit is that many of your actions in-game will have repercussions later in the game. Unfortunately, you only get to choose from 3 different endings, and, for the most part, the game is pretty much linear, but you do get to influence many events.

    Combat sucked, though. And the graphics are...passable from today's standards. But the game aged well, and last I checked, it worked well in modern operating systems (I even got it to work reasonably well in Linux at one point).

    The other two train wrecks that bear the same name are just sad, pathetic little things in comparison.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    Old Fool (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:08am

    Re: Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    Actualy, it's run by Rupert Murdoch. The same guy who runs Fox - I'm sure you see the problem now....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:08am

    tldr; Can you get these at Best Buy?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    PaulT (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:10am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Facts? we don't need no stinking facts

    "So you're saying Techdirt, especially Timmy, feeds on Murdoch's crap"

    Wow, *that's* how far you have to stretch to attack the site this time? Give up.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:13am

    I never asked for this

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:15am

    Re:

    What a shame.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:19am

    Re:

    DX:IW was terrible from a technical standpoint but had a pretty cool story and some interesting locations. If they made the levels bigger by removing the loading screens between areas and fixed some of the bugs (like the fact that there's two identical Multitool objects that act exactly the same in every way except will not stack in your insanely limited inventory) it would really shine.

    DX:HR was actually super good and I'm wondering if you actually bothered to play it. The boss fights were awful but since they were really quick and literally had nothing to do with the rest of the game (they were made by a completely different company) I figure it's safe to give them a pass.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Jake, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:21am

    A bit of a reputation? That's a fucking understatement.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. icon
    PaulT (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:26am

    Re:

    The original is available on GoG, so it definitely works fine in anything up to Windows 8 on the MS side.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 7:29am

    Re:

    DX:IW was decent but crippled by technical problems.

    DX:HR was awesome except the boss fights (which were easy, short, and outsourced to another company), and the ending which is literally "choose one of three buttons at the end of the hallway". But other than those gripes it was really a fantastic game, so I'm honestly left wondering if you even played it before leaving your closing remark there.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. icon
    Nick (profile), 18 Oct 2013 @ 8:31am

    Re:

    Exactly. I hear "tabloid" and I immediately disregard anything posted inside it as lies. In fact, isn't it possible this was intentional satire?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    dennis deems, 18 Oct 2013 @ 9:18am

    Wait till they run their scoop about Shinra corporation and their secret program of extracting the life essence from hapless test subjects.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 11:39am

    It's a shame those don't exist because from the looks of it their editors need a pair themselves.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  27. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 11:41am

    Re:

    Pshaw, that's NOTHING. That's all just PR spin to distract you from Shinra's disgusting attempts to create more Ancients.

    I mean, EW.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  28. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 12:37pm

    So what?

    So what if the British Sun got their facts a little confused - their page 3 girl is always topless. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  29. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 1:10pm

    Re: Re:

    End of next week, the DXHR director's cut will be released on steam with graphical and gameplay improvements (yes, there are still boss fights, but they've been reworked).

    People who own the game will pay only a severely reduced price.

    And there was much rejoicing.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  30. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 1:12pm

    Re:

    I heard there are aliens living in slums in Johannesburg...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  31. identicon
    romo, 18 Oct 2013 @ 2:31pm

    sarif

    well the make everything else up so why not

    link to this | view in thread ]

  32. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Oct 2013 @ 4:19pm

    Re:

    That explains the stop and frisk video Techdirt posted the other day.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  33. identicon
    Anonymous, 19 Oct 2013 @ 4:27pm

    Real Life is the band that had hits with "Send Me An Angel" and "Catch Me, I'm Falling".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  34. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 22 Oct 2013 @ 1:38am

    Re:

    I wanted orange, it gave me lemon-lime.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  35. identicon
    Rajib Mridha, 12 Nov 2013 @ 12:44am

    Deus is really an interesting game..the game is pretty much linear, but you do get to influence many events.But i like it more..

    Newspaper

    link to this | view in thread ]


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