www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65392,00.html?tw=wn_story_top5
His unblinking eyes gazed at Sex and the City on a 1 5-inch color TV over the counter at Nizario's Pizza on 18th Street in Sa n Francisco's Castro neighborhood Sunday evening.
For 10 seconds, Li kept looking, waiting, not blinking through his glasse s At last, he left his stool, trashed his plate and emerged into the co ol autumn night. Leaving, he passed 48-year-old Mitch Altman, who was twiddling a matte-bl ack plastic fob on his key chain. Altman's blue and purple hair reflecte d the pizza shop's neon, and he was smiling excitedly. "We just saved him several minutes of his life," he said. He said he didn't care that the TV was gone, even though he ha d been watching the show.
TV-B-Gone, a new universal remote that t urns off almost any television. The device, which looks like an automobi le remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popul ar brands first.
The device is also providing hours o f entertainment for its inventor. At a Laundromat and cafe down the street, a lone man sorted clothes in th e glow of larger-than-life bikini babes on a 60-inch Sony HDTV. A punch of the button and the screen instantly went dark. He went on folding his T-shirts, seemingly unaware of the change. "It's so much part of the environme nt in the US that people don't even notice when it disappears." There, when he clicked off sto re TVs, everyone looked around to see who did it. At Best Buy, neither customers nor staff responded as one set after anoth er turned off -- Sony TVs first, then a JVC and an Apex, all from a sing le click. The interview was easier without competition from Pirates of t he Caribbean. Improved conversation was the motivation behind TV-B-Gone, and it's why A ltman calls it the most helpful tool he's worked on.
Since he left 3ware, he has spent most of his time finishing up TV-B-Gone . His equity from that firm provided the capital for the first run of 20 ,000 remotes. "I was always squandering my time, energy and creativity on something tha t was at best benign," he said, in the suddenly quiet aisle at Best Buy. "I was always trying to get people to do something good. The idea for TV-B-Gone was born at a restaurant in the early 1990s, when Altman and his friends kept paying attention to a TV in the corner, not to one another. They chatted about how to turn off all televisions, and he wondered if it would be possible to string together a series of "powe r" commands. After that, the project would have disappeared, but Altman's friends want ed the tools. He said about 50 people volunteered to help design, packag e and even name the TV-B-Gone.
Nina Paley, he said, has b egged for over a decade to work on the packaging. At a pizza restaurant, a giant Samsung HDT V turned off only after a couple of tries. After a kitchen worker turned it back on, TV-B-Gone had become impotent against the blaring football game. Altman said manufacturers periodically add new codes, though he sa id he had never seen the device work once and then lose its effect.
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