[mouse over to see the original image]

Publicity chief for the Democratic Action Party in Malaysia, Jeffrey Wong Su En, thought it was a good idea to send out a press release (along with the above photo) stating he had been Knighted. It seems titles are all the rage in Malaysia these days, and short of “Duke” or “Lord” what better title could one have?

Well, Buckingham Palace begged to differ with Wong and it caused the British High Commission spokesperson in Kuala Lumpur to say, “We can confirm that we have no record of any honour having been conferred at any time by the British Government on Jeffery Wong Su En.”

OK, so where did he get the photo? From here – he just Shopped himself over Ross Brawn.

Wong still protests that he was, in fact, knighted despite the overwhelming evidence he was not. He is (rightfully so) now facing expulsion from his political party.

Related articles…

Malaysian politician faked pictures of knighthood from the Queen [Telegraph.co.uk]

Malaysian politico gets knighted in Photoshop [The Register]

Stir over DAP man’s ‘Sir’ title [Star Online]

Above: “Image Restoration” taken from Part I: Fundamentals and Local Models of the Tutorial on Modeling Natural Image Statistics for Computer Vision by Siwei Lyu and Stefan Roth.

The Times Union recently had a write up on Assistant Professor Siwei Lyu from University at Albany. An excerpt from the article…

Computers allow digital photographs to be easily manipulated in such a way that the human eye cannot detect the forgery. But University at Albany Assistant Professor Siwei Lyu is training computers to do the important work that mere mortals cannot.

These days, it’s not hard to remake reality on your home computer, with Photoshop programs and built-in software on cameras that allows for immediate manipulation.

Lyu has developed a system that turns digital photos into a mathematical computer language that make it easier to investigate “photo-chopping” and determine the components of a natural image.

“We’re just playing detectives,” he said. “It’s easy to fake images.”

[Read entire article]

If you (like myself) are a true nerd about this stuff and want to read more on the work Lyu is doing, you can find links to his research here.

[mouse over to see the original image]

Above is Paul the Octopus – a “psychic” octopus that the Germans rely on to pick the winners of World Cup matches. (Supposedly during the 2008 European Championship, Paul correctly predicted 80 percent of all German games.) Well, looks like someone is trying to artificially pump up (or hoax) Spain’s fan base. They took a photo of Paul from his “psychic pick” for the Germany-Serbia World Cup match and Shopped Spain’s flag (well, most of it – they left off the crest) over Serbia’s.

Related articles…

Desperate Spain fakes World Cup octopus prediction [NBC Sports]

Paul the Oracle Octopus Picks Spain Over Germany? It’s a Fraud [NowPublic]

UPDATE 7/6/2010: At the big event today Paul wound up picking Spain! See fakers? You didn’t have to even bother! Doesn’t it feel better when it’s for real?

While watching Ghost Hunters last week I saw a promo for an upcoming series on SyFy called Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files and it sure sounds like my kinda show! From the SyFy website…

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files is set to revolutionize paranormal programming by investigating the evidence witnesses post on the Internet every day. Have you ever seen a photo or video online and wondered, “Is this real?” This is the show that will answer that question.

Heading up the Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files team is Ben Hansen, a former FBI agent with a life-long fascination with the paranormal. Now, having left the agency, he leads a young team of intrepid investigators who will convene to dissect the latest unusual images and decide whether they merit further investigation. Grainy videos will be brought to life as the team conducts thorough and elaborate experiments in an attempt to recreate the phenomena, and Ben will make the final choice which cases will require a trip into the field.

The series premiere is Thursday, July 15th at 10 Eastern (9 Central). Can’t wait!

Oh Italy, how I love your Photoshopping ways! I have written about Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, before and now we have been graced with this gem…

[Please - I beg of you - click to enlarge this image. It is sooo worth it!]

You really need to view the enlarged image to see the Shops in their full glory – fake flowers, fuzzy balconies, duplicated people – this image has it all! I even found some more things (duplicated flags – noted in blue). It is like a Where’s Waldo? of Shops! Can you find more?

If there are any Italians out there who want to give me the skinny on this story, please feel free to do so in the comments. I tried to hunt down what magazine this originated from (I got the scan from Twitter), but all the news articles I could find are written in Italian … and, you know, I’m American which means I can’t even read or write English all that well.

Thanks to Kevin for the submit!

Update: After attempting to read some Italian news articles that were franken-hacked via google translator, it appears the above photo is from a magazine/book published by Alberto Peruzzo called “Noi Amiamo Silvio” (We Love Silvio) – a collection of photos celebrating the Prime Minister. If the above is just a taste of what the magazine holds, my bet is that it is filled with even more glorious Shops! It is on sale now in Italy, costs 9.90 euros and would make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for this blogger. Just sayin’.