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.
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Those TV-B-Gones are no joke. I’ve had one for a few years, and you can definitely produce some strong reactions from people if you use them injudiciously – or at all. I have more stories about it than I can relate here, but I can tell you, every one of them ends with someone getting much more upset than I expected them to.
The guy who sold it to me said, “Be careful! I used it in the locker room at the gym, where a couple of guys where watching a football game. They ended up trashing the TV.”
Fun fun fun.