you missed the link
http://interactive-matter.org/2009/07/%C2%B5tvbg-tv-b-gone-clone/#more-319

Posted at 11:04 am on Jul 4th, 2009 by jay

Biggest problem is that he isn’t selling kits or anything. :(

Posted at 11:07 am on Jul 4th, 2009 by skinner

I would love one this small. Maybe they will have a kit soon.

Posted at 11:17 am on Jul 4th, 2009 by cirictech

+1 for a kit

Posted at 11:29 am on Jul 4th, 2009 by docodine

A kit would be awesome.

Posted at 12:01 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Jordan

ive thought about a miniature tvbgone kit but note that with the LED and battery size, it probably wont work farther than maybe 10 feet and the battery will die very quickly.

Posted at 12:14 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by ladyada

This rocks!

As an extra geeky note the size is small enough to fit inside one of the toy Doctor Who sonic screwdrivers. ;-)

Posted at 12:48 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by nimitzbrood

The link.. Where is the “Read” link?

Sometimes its really hard finding the actual articles on hack a day. Not that I mind the informative “extras”.

Posted at 1:17 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by arthur hall

Not cool; don’t encourage people.

Posted at 2:42 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by AlmostThere

If a 3mm or 5mm LED was used you should be able to get a decent distance, for a couple of years I used to use a Casio remote control wristwatch (til the strap broke), it achieved a decent distance and a really long battery life on a coin cell like this miniature tv-b-gone, but not nearly as long as the 5+ years my Casio Thermometer watch is still getting.

Hey that’s a thought, a tv-b-gone wristwatch…

Posted at 3:46 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Haku

I agree that it is sometimes hard to find the actual articles on this great website.

Just FYI…

Posted at 3:58 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Seth

why do fuckers find it necessary to turn off tvs i’m watching? does it make your penis bigger? does it get you hot chicks? WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT of this cocksucking device.

if there’s a tv on in an area i’m in, and i don’t like it, i act like a fucking adult and ask whomever runs the establishment to turn the volume down. is that so fucking hard for you? what the FUCK!?

Posted at 4:12 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by jeremiah

Oh man those were the days.

-and talk about fireworks! (happy 4th hackaday)

-it was a giant flame war on Gizmodo (and elsewhere) between the people who thought that stunt was funny, the people who were crying foul, and the people who were laughing at the lot of ‘em.

Good times. Good times.

I’m always tempted to build that stuff up with larger LEDs, bigger batteries, and the thought of using optics to either spread the light or make it longer range.

hacking, i believe it’ called ;)

anyhoo, good stuff. have fun everybody!

Posted at 4:36 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by strider_mt2k

hmmm this whole thing would fit in the brim of a baseball cap. gives me a idea

Posted at 4:44 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by mick

@jeremiah

The answer to your question is it’s partially to stir up reactions like yours.

Unfortunately this little toy of mischief is going to change the way remote controls operate.

Posted at 4:48 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by aMediumPace

@ Jeremiah

Oh, you act like an adult? I don’t I scream obscenities at people ’till I get my way.

Anarky

Posted at 5:31 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Anarky

@ Jeremiah

Oh, you act like an adult? I don’t. I scream obscenities at people ’till I get my way.

Anarky

Posted at 5:31 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Anarky

Double post. My bad :(

Posted at 5:32 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Anarky

who cares if the raiders beat the pirates (football… baseball.. thats how little i care)
every sports bar and pizza place should have the displeasure of experiencing this device at least a hundred times.

isn’t there also a tv-b-randomchannel out there?

Posted at 5:49 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by Gilliam V.

Can’t you send a blank carrier wave to block these out?

I think that you can also remove the IR sensor or cover it with tape if you don’t want this happening.

I remember when I was a kid I put the IR from my remote on a leash so I could work the DirecTV box in the front room from my friend’s bedroom, back when dual-tuners and extra boxes weren’t standard.

Posted at 7:07 pm on Jul 4th, 2009 by nubie

“Cant you send a blank carrier wave to block these out?”

Let’s take the Gizmondo incident into consideration.

How does a remote work? It sends pulses over IR that the TV can pick up with a sensor.

How would you mask a TVBGone? By flooding the area with IR light.

Where did Gizmondo do this? At an electronics convention where there is hundreds of people using cameras, video and picture, covering the event.

This would also affect people using a remote control to control powerpoint/interactive presentations…

Let that sink in for a second.

So no, there’s no way to stop these from working short of blocking the sensor on every device that could be affected by it (televisions)… which is something the event organizers and reps should have done in the first place.

Posted at 12:10 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by Jimbo

I’d prefer they make it in a larger package. More leverage to shove it up the rear exhaust hole of some one who shut off the TV, I was watching. :)

Posted at 12:28 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by static

that gizmodo prank was hilarious, I hadn’t seen it before. I’d burst out laughing and hence get caught if I tried such a stunt…

will TV remotes start using encrypted commands to get around this? probably not, it would create more problems than it would solve…

Posted at 6:39 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by Mephistopheles

heh, i used to use my pda to turn off projectors in class. fun times.

@jeremiah: whoever, not whomever.
also: stfu

Posted at 8:50 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by bort

These chumps will be happy when we can’t use universal remotes anymore all because of their little joke.

Posted at 9:25 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by bob

I still want a cellphone-b-gone like what LadyAda put together…

http://www.ladyada.net/make/wavebubble/

Posted at 10:08 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by Etan

And the best thing is what are companys going to do about it RF-remotes?too expensive, change codes?,we’ll just read em off the chip’s.

You can’t stop us.

Posted at 10:22 am on Jul 5th, 2009 by Sharky

@bob

soon enough I imagine universal remotes will have firmware that can be updated wirelessly or by usb. Encryption can be added that way and it will be no more inconvenient than the half-dozen things you probably already have that use updateable firmware.

Posted at 1:42 pm on Jul 5th, 2009 by sol

encryption is expensive. just cover the IR receiver.

honestly i think the gizmodo “prank” isn’t really acceptable. let’s just say that i come from a place where pranks are a thing, and that i’ve been part of quite a number of them, and that we’ve got guidelines that remind us that there’s a point when a “prank” becomes vandalism. there might have been a way to do it right, but honestly the way they executed it would have been probably a violation of our honor code applied to pranking.

there are appropriate, amusing ways to use the tv-b-gone. but knowing how most people will handle these situations, most people will probably do something fairly malicious and not amusing to a more general audience. doing pranks right requires quite a bit of discussion and thought.

Posted at 3:16 pm on Jul 5th, 2009 by threepointone

@Mephistopheles and others

Guys, remotes will be similar to how garage doors work today. Instead of switching DIP switches in your garage door opener to set the code (just like current universal remotes), you ’sync’ your garage door opener remote with your garage door opener.

It will work exactly the same with with televisions. A similar concept to understand is how the Wii controller and xbox 360 controller work. You have to ’sync’ the remotes with the systems. This will give the tv remotes a special key that must match the device for operation. It won’t even be a hassle and universal remotes will be that much easier to program.

Posted at 3:20 pm on Jul 5th, 2009 by skinner

I want a car-stereo-b-gone for when I’m at the gas station!

Posted at 8:14 am on Jul 6th, 2009 by sid

yeah i’ve kinda gotta agree with [threepointone] here. the folks at these conventions spend boatloads of time and money creating those presentations, and i’d have to believe this could be argued as a case for vandalism. as much as i’m not a huge fan of marketing folks (ask anyone in i.t. who their least favorite department is), morals and legalities come into play here. granted you’re unlikely to get caught, and it sure is funny as heck to those ‘in the know’, but if it were you on stage trying to sell your idea you’d be pissed. now doing this to the wife during american idol is perfectly acceptable and encouraged ;)

Posted at 8:59 am on Jul 6th, 2009 by Daley

@ jeremiah

(1) i use my tv-be-gones to turn off a doz plasmas in our empty tv lounges because that last undergraduate to leave can’t be bothered to turn anything off– gotta save the planet;

(2) and it has enhanced my love life when i give one to a syt– much more effective than dinner and a movie.

hacking can be very sexy and is easily more attractive than spewing crap.

Posted at 9:21 am on Jul 6th, 2009 by Bellerophon

If Gizmodo did it when there was purely browsing, aka not during a presentation or anything, then it’s merely a prank and is hilarious. During a key presentation, however, I do agree that it’s inappropriate.

I want one of these, if anything so I can shut off the TVs at buffalo wild wings while my brothers are trying to watch the packers games, that’ll teach them for not liking the Bears like their chicagoland heritage should.

Posted at 9:17 pm on Jul 6th, 2009 by tromoly

@jeremiah – you’re kinda funny when you’ve got a stick up your ass… lol

Posted at 2:14 am on Jul 7th, 2009 by Richard

I disagree tromoloy, it was a prank because there was a presentation, doing it when nobody is around is called ‘pointless’ and a little sad.
I think the gizmodo thing was OK because it was a one time relatively unique thing, doing it again either by them or somebody else would not be funny but merely annoying.
I think gismodo getting ‘punished’ with a ban was just silly.

Posted at 11:47 am on Jul 7th, 2009 by Wwhat

Do they make a brat b gone for movies and airplanes?

Posted at 12:04 pm on Jul 7th, 2009 by DeFex

What is so great about this version, its the same just with smd parts.

Posted at 2:25 am on Jul 8th, 2009 by Chrisman

Wow nice info you have here. I hope this will help a lot of people. I will tell my friends to read this. Thanks

Posted at 7:48 pm on Jul 15th, 2009 by Techie Talks

The term applicable is contempt. Both in or for applications of our talents as hackers-and in comments on forums. The most blunt clue bat in all of existence seemingly cannot dent the impenetrable ignorance of many folks around us.

We’re supposed to be a public credit to hacking in forums like this, not a public shaming of the term hacker ok!

What am “I” doing posting such concepts here? Ah, I’m hacking perceptions!

we can express several of our “perceptions.” Ranging from “Well Done!” appreciation for the impressive work on this remake… Or whinging aboout the uses it’s put to… Or we can perceive the bedrock truth.

that a microminature tv-b-gone is neither inherently good or evil as an intrinsic “fact”

Which “fact” by extension then applies any differently between the micro version or to Mitch’s original device incarnation?

As for the battery life issue of the micro? Simply pot one of these into a 9V battery shell with the emitter where the bottom of the battery had been-think hot melt or candle wax even… Hell, use a “joule thief” to snarf the last few tortured electrons from reclaimed 9v batteries “not dead” enough to harvest for shells&clips… Oh? Tell me that last one’s not a valid hack:>

Posted at 9:41 pm on Jul 27th, 2009 by Oren Beck