{"id":2891,"date":"2004-10-19T03:21:08","date_gmt":"2004-10-19T17:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/19\/tv-b-gone\/"},"modified":"2019-12-11T11:41:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T19:41:26","slug":"tv-b-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/19\/tv-b-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"TV-B-Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:10023,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.tvbgone.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.tvbgone.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10024,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.wired.com\\\/news\\\/culture\\\/0,1284,65392,00.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.wired.com\\\/news\\\/culture\\\/0,1284,65392,00.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Number one with a bullet on my Christmas wish list this year: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tvbgone.com\/\" title=\"TV-B-Gone\">TV-B-Gone<\/a>, a universal remote control with one button, and one function &#8212; to turn off any television.<\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news\/culture\/0,1284,65392,00.html\" title=\"Inventor rejoices as TVs go dark\">Wired&#8217;s writeup<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Altman&#8217;s key-chain fob was a TV-B-Gone, a new universal remote that turns off almost any television. The device, which looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.<\/p>\n<p>  For Altman, founder of Silicon Valley data-storage maker 3ware, the TV-B-Gone is all about freeing people from the attention-sapping hold of omnipresent television programming. The device is also providing hours of entertainment for its inventor.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Responding to the accusation that it sounded like unaccountable power, Burke said, &#8220;You&#8217;ve heard about the battle for eyeballs. They&#8217;re your eyeballs. You should not have your consciousness constantly invaded. Television people are getting better and better at finding ways of roping us into TV where we can&#8217;t get away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  With the spread of TiVo and downloadable movies, he said, the traditional 30-second spot is dying. Now, advertisers want waiting rooms, elevators and urinals &#8212; and they don&#8217;t want anyone to be able to turn the screens off.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I am <em>so<\/em> in favor of <em>anything<\/em> that works on breaking the stranglehold TV has on most people. I&#8217;m not militantly anti-TV &#8212; of late, I&#8217;ve been thoroughly enjoying watching Buffy, Angel, and (thanks to my parents) the West Wing thanks to the DVD releases of each of those shows.<\/p>\n<p>But for too many people, TV takes over their lives. I can fall prey to this too &#8212; when I&#8217;m in an environment where a TV is on and in my line of vision, it&#8217;s difficult not to get sucked in. I&#8217;ve often been out with friends to grab a bite at some restaurant that feels the need to scatter TVs around the building, and it always makes it more difficult to carry on a converstion, as there is the constant background distraction.<\/p>\n<p>One of these little gizmos in my pocket would make me a much happier person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Number one with a bullet on my Christmas wish list this year: TV-B-Gone, a universal remote control with one button, and one function &mdash; to turn off any television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2038],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-2891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}