Ripoff

The UK has a weird relationship with Eurovision. We put forward focus-grouped no-hopers (whither “Joe and Jake”???) then get indignant when they inevitably lose. For years, although fans have suggested we follow the rest of Europe and put forward, you know, an actual pop star, that has never happened, for whatever reason – probably because the risk of losing is even higher and even more embarrassing for a known entity. Tap Management, which looks after the likes of Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding and formerly Dua Lipa,…

If we get to the end of 2024 with a better news story than Willy’s Chocolate Experience in Glasgow, I will be absolutely staggered.It’s the perfect story. You’ve got high expectations versus miserable reality. You’ve got an organiser who – if his reams and reams of apparently AI-generated self-published books are any indication – has a samurai-level expertise when it comes to parting people from their money. You’ve got the fact that he runs a company called House of Illuminati. You’ve got police involvement. You’ve got…

Smaller developers have jumped on the subscription bandwagon, too. Take the popular password manager 1Password, you can run the software on up to 10 devices at a time (five PCs, five tablets). Adobe, meanwhile, allows you to remain signed in to Acrobat and other Creative Cloud apps on two devices at a time.Also: How Adobe is leveraging generative AI in customer experience upgradesIf you were a software developer with a popular app and you wanted to build a sustainable business, which payments model would you…

The former chief legal officer of The Pokémon Company has called Palworld “ripoff nonsense”. Speaking to Stephen Totilo at Game File, Don McGowan, former chief legal officer at The Pokémon Company, said that he’s surprised the game got this far. “This looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was chief legal officer of Pokémon. I’m just surprised it got this far,” McGowan said. The early access release of Palworld has been met with controversy, with several people discussing…

As VinFast expands its presence in the US, the Vietnamese automaker recently showed off its new DrgnFly electric bike at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. But no sooner did the veil drop than the questions began to swirl about just how close is too close when mimicking other famous e-bike designs. In this case, the specs of the bike are less important. Sure, it’s got a 750W motor and does 28 mph (45 km/h), but so do a hundred other e-bike models in the US alone, let alone around the…

The towering success of 1975's Jaws inspired a fleet of rip-offs, and one of the less terrible ones—1977's Orca—is suddenly feeling very contemporary, what with all the headlines about killer whales gathering en masse and menacing yachts. While Orca emphasizes aquatic drama over science, the mood it captures still feels eerily prescient.Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard Nerd Out About Jurassic Park's Returning HeroesBack in 1977, however, you can absolutely see why audiences felt inundated with déjà vu. Orca takes place…

via EuropaCorp If you were asked to name an action thriller co-written and produced by Luc Besson set in, around, and across Europe that featured an aging star playing a retired special agent undertaking one last job in an effort to protect their daughter from unsavory forces, there’s no chance 3 Days to Kill would be the first title to come out of your mouth. The obvious answer is Taken, but based on how critics and crowds reacted to the insufferable McG’s attempt to try and piggyback on the breakout smash…

Apple caused quite a stir when it released the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max with their Dynamic Island. It looked strange at first, but now we kinda dig it. And so does Android OEM Realme, it seems.Enter, the Realme C55, a new Android phone that sits at the budget end of the price range — so very much not in the same league as Apple's best iPhone. But the two phones do have something in common...They both have a Dynamic Island.Dynamic Mini Capsule IslandRealme calls its Dynamic Island something different, but it's…

via Warner Bros. Not everything in the superhero genre has to be boiled down to a Marvel vs. DC debate at the end of the day, but when the tribalism continues to run rampant among both fandoms, it’s not as if the ongoing bickering between both camps is going to stop. While most stars involved in the movies and TV shows tend to keep quiet, Shazam! Fury of the Gods newcomer Rachel Zegler has had enough. The fast-rising star exploded onto the scene with her Golden Globe-winning performance in Steven Spielberg’s…

We’ve seen plenty of smartwatches try to be the Apple Watch before, but few have come anywhere close to ripping Apple’s hugely popular wearable off quite this well. Introducing the pTron Force X11S.The watch is available for sale in India right now and it’s as shameless an Apple Watch wannabe as you’re ever likely to come across.Right now the Force X11S is selling for ₹1,499 or just $18.40, although that’s part of an Amazon offer. Normally it’s supposed to sell for ₹4,599 — still just $56.45.Features for daysYou might be…