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Keychain Remote Control
20-Oct-2004
Written by: Angelica Marden
Sick of the tube drowning you out?
Ever feel like there is a TV everywhere you go? An innovative keychain remote control, that allows its user to turn off most TVs, is giving owners the ability to control even their public TV viewing, and is selling like crazy.
"I thought there would just be a trickle, but we are swamped," said the inventor, Mitch Altman of San Francisco. "I didn't know there were so many people who were into turning TV off."
The unexpected attention to Altman's $14.99 "TV-B-Gone" gadget may be correlated to its announcements in Wired magazine and online outlets. Attention has been so extreme, hundreds of online orders overloaded and crashed Altman's company, Cornfield Electronics' web site, according to the AP.
The key chain works like a universal remote control and has the capability to turn TVs on or off. The clicker goes through a string of about 200 infrared codes that controls the power of about 1,000 television models. Altman said the majority of TVs should react within 17 seconds, though it takes a little more than a minute for the gizmo to emit all the trigger codes.
Altman, 47 and who has not owned a television in 24 years, first got the idea for TV-B-Gone a decade ago when he was out with friends at a restaurant and they found themselves all glued to the perched TV instead of talking to each other, according to the AP.
Who knows how TV junkies will react to the remote if it makes it across the mainstream, but if it does, chances are sports bars and electronic stores will never be the same.
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