I'm hoping to be corrected, but I don't see any lying here (perhaps a white lie to spur a creative colleague into action). The original segment[1] was titled "Pong: an exercise that started an Industry" by Tekla Perry. I'm wondering if it was someone else at IEEE Spectrum who decided to change the title, and if so then it is a poor choice because it sounds misleading.
[1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=636...