Wow did Gizmodo and Engadget pissed you off in CES? Why being so critical?

I'm a college student, and i don't find that funny in the least bit. I really don't think it should be called a prank. it should be called vandalism. after watching their "confession video" its pretty clear they ruined the event for a lot of people.


gizmodo is like school in july - no class

Hmmm, the moral of the story is to tape over your screens IR port! Sounds like the sort of thing that would be funny...If you're 14!

Way to far - I removed thenm from my feeds list as a consequence. Can't be doing with that sort of behaviour.

Scoble did warn us it was going to happen!

@Colin, I'd just started reading Gizmodo over the past few days, and while I like irreverent sites like the Register or the Inquirer have found many of Gizmodo's articles to be a bit too childish.

I see. Thanks for the clarifications and Creek is right - such act from Gizmodo is vandalism.

Actually this kind of incident shows just how vulnrable our technology systems really are! If such a simple device can disable any screen at will, what about those with far more sinister goals?

I´m sending a request to CES organizar to BAN Guizmodo from the list of Bloggers next year. And that´s enough, I´m for CES organizers for taking them to the courts. Actions like these are the one that stop event organizers to treat bloggers like any other kind of press. Actions like these are the main reason why this year bloggers from this site and jkontherun did not receive a press pass but a blogger pass that restricted them from have all the activities programmed for press.

i hope they do get banned, and i hope it shows how serious blogs like this one take events like ces. in my opinion this blog did more reporting on the relevant tech for the blog than major new outlets, while the dancing sony device is fancy...not quite as cool as the mids on display..or the sonly OLED screen.

to tell you the truth i'm not even surprised, this is the kind of childish, immature behaviour that has become commonplace w/ both engadget & gizmodo, the pranks, the constant sexual innuendo in their articles, like they're a bunch of 13 yr old boys playing around over there, they seriously need to grow up.

With respect (and without detail), I would suggest that the "grow up" line might logically spell the end of geeky technology sites whose writers excitedly videotape their own unboxing of their 3rd laptop, table, UMPC, or whatever that has an undeniable "toy" aspect. When I read GBM or jkOTR, I expect and share a certain child-like glee and enthusiasm about the latest tech. Whatever "adult" or "mature" is, let's not pretend we have it in spades, eh?

Engadget and Gizmodo bring a certain humour and personality to the table - and such humour, I would argue, is one of the thin strands that separates tech reportage from mere co-opted sounding boards of corporate marketing departments. In short, pranks and goofiness may piss you off, but they can at least signal journalistic independence to the rest of us. They are a means of allowing tech enthusiast sites to convey excitement about some products and cynicism about others, to a degree beyond what cold "mature" journalists might otherwise express.

yeeah, I'm thinking they'll be lucky to get out of this without a lawsuit. These are some big companies that put a lot of time and money into preparing and setting up these presentations. This could be bad PR for those companies that were demonstating to customers various products only to have stuff appear to fail and make them look incompentent.
Oh, and they were kind enough to video take themselves and post it online, so you know just what companies were effected, or I guess at least some of them.
Idiots!

@Bejamin

Maybe nextime Gizmodo should posts pornography on their site to show their journalistic independence. No matter how much fun and toys Gottabemobile, they still remain a very professional blogging site and please don't mix the mistake of Gizmodo with journalistic independence - it's disgusting.

There's a difference between "humor and enthusiasm" and "cause of lots of pointless work." There are lots of ways to signal journalistic independence. The best way is not to use TV-B-Gone to turn off TVs. The best way is to write honest, accurate articles that get at the heart of what's happening. They had a choice of how to spend their time.

(Having said that, I think they should get a second chance.)

As others are saying, there are ways of being irreverent and independent without causing problems for others. I have no problems with most of Gizmodo's posts, but this was just not cool. Turning off these displays illustrates why, at a time when they and other website are seeking fair and professional treatment from vendors and shows, those same vendors and shows break bloggers out from the "real press," deny demo equipment, or exclude them from product launches, etc.

It's just a shame they couldn't think ahead to the ramifications.

D.

They have been banned from CES for ever:
http://mobilitysite.com/2008/01/crave-update-on-gizmodo/

If that's called journalistic independence I want to stay opening boxes of "new toys". From what they did the only this I learned was how to get banned from events. Now what's needed is to take them to court and make them the salary of all those affected during these days of journalistic independence.

@Gavin Miller - I had only subscribed recently as they had been recommended as a good place to get CES coverage - well, not any more!

I used to be an avid reader of gizmo do, but they have been becoming increasingly cross and immature over the years. I seldom look at their feed anymore and haven't recommended them for a long time. After this, I'm unsubscribing from their RSS Seed. They just aren't relevant anymore.

that should have said crass, not cross.

Ctitanic, Gizmodo was not banned, only the single "Staffer" from Gizmodo was. They are unlikely to take it out on the entire Gizmodo organization. Frankly, I think this is an interesting experiment that tells us a lot about the arrogance of electronic companies as juxtaposed to the weaknesses of their products, which results in contempt for consumers. If the PC (and apparently the GBM) community were to look at this as a condemnation of the makers of hardware that can be so easily vandalized, rather than treat this as a bully who just ruined a frat party, something might come of it. Gizmodo proved -- whether it was their intent to do so or not -- that our hardware faces a lot of serious design flaws that can affect consumers, the economy and perhaps even our security, a fact that is all but smothered behind all the "gosh! wow!" bluster of techno-starstruck computer tech writers. But, as usual, our nation is more obsessed with ensuring we never undergo even the most temporary personal inconvenience, like a monitor going blank, than tackling the larger issues of forcing tech manufacturers to address long-standing, well known design flaws that could seriously harm us, either financially or physically, one day. It's why we're able to overlook Vista's core file system problems because of Aero Glass.

Why is it people think that Gizmodo did CES a favor by unavailing security flaws on the televisions they went around turning off? What security flaw are they talking about? They turned off the T.V!?! Turning off the television using a remote is a feature all T.V's have isn't it? So please, stop it already with the security flaws, because if turning off the T.V. made you more at risk for identity theft or some form of terrorism, then I would keep my plasma on all day. The "real" issue here is these idiots went around turning off T.V's making the lives of vendors who paid hard cash to be there much harder then it should have been. Gizmodo should pay damages to each vendor, and be banned from CES period. Kids need not apply.

Its an older thread but I just had to comment....At what point did turning off a TV, a DVD player, am amp, or any other home consumer electronic device become a security risk? *insert rolling of eyes here*

Now if they can program the TV to explode via the IR port, then lets talk.