Gizmodo Pranks CES By Turning Off Displays on the Expo Floor Using a TV-B-Gone Device

Wow, the Interwebs are exploding over Gizmodo’s prank at CES where they turned off a bunch of displays on the expo floor using TV-B-Gone devices provided by Make Magazine. Their prank, instigated by Richard Blakeley, ended up getting him banned from the conference. Eddie Codel suggests that everyone stop freaking out about it.

CES has no shortage of displays. And when MAKE offered us some TV-B-Gone clickers to bring to the show, we pretty much couldn’t help ourselves. We shut off a TV. And then another. And then a wall of TVs. And we just couldn’t stop. (And Panasonic, you’re so lucky that 150-incher didn’t have an active IR port.) It was too much fun, but watching this video, we realize it probably made some people’s jobs harder, and I don’t agree with that (Especially Motorola). We’re sorry.

UPDATE: Gizmodo editor Brian Lam writes about the whole being banned for life from CES thing.

Scott Beale
Scott Beale

Scott Beale is the founder of Laughing Squid and is based in New York City. When not running the blog, Scott can be found posting on Threads and sharing photos on Instagram.