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The Universal Off Button
jcr13 writes "Wired news is running a story about TV-B-Gone, a new weapon in the fight against the pervasiveness of television in our society. With this device, which takes the form of a keychain fob with a single button, you can turn off virtually any TV set. How does it work? By rolling through all known IR power-off codes, one by one, trying codes from the most popular brands first. Personally, I am terribly annoyed by TVs in restaurants and airports: they grab my attention over and over, no matter how hard I try to ignore them, and they distract me from the conversations that I should be having with my human companions. Unfortunately, the TV-B-Gone website seems to have already been swamped by the Wired coverage, so we cannot order these just yet. In the mean time, those of you with DIY proclivities may want to think about wiring one of these up yourself using a PIC chip or other micro-controller." An anonymous reader adds links to mentions at CNET, TV station KESQ and Ananova.
If you like being able to turn off any TV you'd like, you'll like TV Turn-off Week. It's going to be held from April 25-May 1, 2005. Personally, the Internet's replaced TV for me; even though there is a TV here I don't really watch it now.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
It sends a "power" signal. In essence, it is a universal on remote. I've never seen anything with a button that turns a tv off but not on (though I have [and own] a vcr that has an on-only button and a on-off button).
I hate grammar Nazi's.
This is kinda pedantic, but for what it's worth, the article said it takes around a minute for it to transmit all the codes in it's little database, so it's unlikely you'll be able to get the totally desired timing effect to -really- piss everybody off. Also it seems like it'd be pretty hard to use this thing discretely if you have to point it at a TV for half a minute on average.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. This thing's about as easy to defeat as a copy-protected CD.
Just put electrical tape over the IR sensor. Problem solved. Carry on.