As I said when I posted this, I'm sure after this video gets around it will be S.O.P. at trade shows to cover the IR receivers of demo displays.

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I'm surprised it already isn't.

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Really.

It's not like TV-B-Gone hasn't been around awhile. Electrical tape is cheap.

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Nice technology, but douchebag application.

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I actually felt kinda bad for the Motorola guy trying to do his presentation. You could tell he was getting a bit upset.

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Yeah. It was funny, but I did feel sorry for the poor presenters who would have had absolutely no idea what was going on.

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I feel less sorry for that project manager/corporate head/VIP from Motorola than I do for the 2-5 IT people that got fired because his presentation didn't go according to planned.

If there are innocent victims from any of this, it's gonna be those guys. Hopefully they are good little geeks and subscribe to Gizmodo and/or jwz's LJ and can use that footage to defend themselves before they're shitcanned.

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the digital-age version of tagging...

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Not even a little. A black screen doesn't include a fancy pirate name or shout outs to homeys.

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ok, so it's like painting someone's windows black.

I'm not saying all uses of tv-b-gone are like tagging, that's like saying all spraypaint is vandalism. But that video is pretty much straight up vandalism. those poor shmucks are just trying to earn a paycheck, and some assholes kept fucking with them. boy, you know what would be really funny, is if someone figured out a way to randomly shut off our CO2 lines right at last call. what a hoot that would be! or even better, randomly make soundweb reboot!

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"Ve are nihilists! Ve tag nozzing! NOZZING!"

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Real-life griefing, actually.

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Yeah, this was pretty much pure childish jackassery, especially in the cases where people are trying to actually pay attention to the screens (c.f. the generic walls of hateful visual noise).

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I carried mine everywhere with me too, until the battery ran out. I'm wretched at remembering to replace it. Bloody useful, though.

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I'm struggling to think of a situation I regularly find myself in that would be made easier or less uncomfortable if I carried a TV-B-Gone. What are the genuine non-prank applications?

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Sports-bars. Sports bars and restaurants with televisions playing, those were the main places I used it. Anywhere with gratuitous, loud advertising genreally got my click too.

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I can understand it for the loud advertising, but it strikes me that using a TV-B-Gone at a sports bar is the same as using a DJ-B-Gone at a nightclub. I guess I should count myself lucky for being a homebody.

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Well no, because in places with a hundred TV's, no one notices when the one pointing directly at your table goes off, except the other people at your table, who are generally thankful.

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I'd say, not sports bars, but bars where nobody is watching the game. Or pre-game show, or ads, or whatever the fuck is on the telly that the bartender insists on keeping on when your party makes up half the people in the bar and the other half aren't paying it any attention.

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what? there's a DJ-B-Gone? Where do you get that? I want, I want!
p.s. JWZ I promise not to use it at DNA...

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Airports with CNN accosting you at every gate.

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Airports with FOX accosting you at every gate.

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One of the more satisfying moments I've ever had was shutting off the FOX in an airport.

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Have you managed to carry it past security in an airport any time recently?

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I just throw it in my laptop case- the laptop obviously has to come out, but the morass of cables and devices left in the case has never gotten me a second look by security.

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=) until now....

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Car repair waiting rooms that have the TV on Jerry Springer or Judge Judy or whatever every time you go there. If there's nobody else in there with their eyes glued to the set, feel free. :}

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Or you can be straightforward and just ask people if they'd mind you changing the channel or turning it off, which is what I've done. People are way too afraid of human interaction/confrontation these days. (Of course you can't always do that in which case the TV-B-Gone is helpful.)

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But what if the TV is mounted to the ceiling with its buttons covered up and there's no remote in sight?

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Then it's quite clear that the owner would really rather that people wouldn't muck about with it.

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In that case I shall take my business to some other shop that doesn't feel the need to blare Montel Williams or Fox News at its customers.

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I spend entirely too much time in hospital waiting rooms with my chronic illnesses. The last thing I need when I am sick and in pain and cranky is the Montel Williams show on high volume. TV-B-Gon has saved me from getting a few migraines, and made quite a few of them a lot better.

I originally bought one after going to dinner at some damn chain restaurant which had TVs all around its bar and eating area. The TVs were playing some sort of live video cop show, which involved gore and violence of a level I would think some people would really rather not have around their food. For me, it was the video of the emergency lights; which are a migraine trigger. I tried to move my chair, but there were TVs everywhere. I asked the waiter to fix it. The waiter had to get the manager; he had to get a ladder. Ten minutes later, they finally made TV #1 change to a baseball game; I'd never been so happy to see one.

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There's a youtube version that should be embeddable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICpM3ItIhI0

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Now that I went out of my way to figure out how to embed their shit, I'll gladly spend Gizmodo's bandwidth money instead of Youtube's. They deserve it.

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LOL on both, the video and your stubborness. :) Love it.

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..It's straight economics, not stubbornness, amigo.

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I'm waiting for someone to call this electronic terrorism.

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Thanks for the reminder to pick up another one; my old one got smashed.

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TV-B-Gone apparently makes screens go "wack-o mack-o".

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