TV-B-Gone is a universal remote control device for turning off various brands of television sets . Released in 2004, its inventor referred to it as "an environmental management device". Although it can require up to 72 seconds for the device to find the proper code for a particular television receiver , the most popular televisions turn off in the first few seconds.
12-421: TV-B-Gone was invented by Mitch Altman and is sold by his company Cornfield Electronics. The standard model TV-B-Gone consists of an infra-red LED, two CR2032 cells and an integrated circuit containing the television power code database, all in a plastic case. The original case aesthetics and design were created by Robert Ellis. The TV-B-Gone Pro SHP (Super High Power) is the latest TV-B-Gone to be announced. It
24-650: A Better World". Following extensive involvement in the " Maker " movement and Make magazine, including being featured in a Make magazine April Fool's Day prank, Altman publicly parted ways with the Maker Faire in 2012 after the Maker Faire accepted contracts with the United States Department of Defense. In 2004 Altman released a one-button universal remote control called TV-B-Gone , to be used for turning off TVs in public places. Altman used money from
36-452: Is a featured speaker at hacker conferences, an international expert on the hackerspace movement, and teaches introductory electronics workshops. He is also Chief Scientist and CEO of Cornfield Electronics. Altman grew up in Rogers Park , Chicago, Illinois. After kindergarten his family moved to Highland Park, Illinois. Altman graduated from Deerfield High School (Illinois) in 1975. Altman
48-908: Is an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he earned an undergraduate degree (1980) and a master's degree (1984) in electrical engineering. While at the University of Illinois, Altman co-organized the first Hash Wednesday in Champaign-Urbana in 1977. Altman moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 to work in Silicon Valley . Altman was an early developer of virtual reality technologies, working at VPL Research with Jaron Lanier . In addition to Lanier, Altman worked alongside about 15 other individuals. Altman left VPL Research in protest when it accepted contracts with
60-551: Is an international meeting of hackers that takes place every four years, organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). So far all CCCamps have been held near Berlin , Germany. The camp is an event for providing information about technical and societal issues, such as privacy , freedom of information and data security . Hosted speeches are held in big tents and conducted in English as well as German. Each participant may pitch
72-474: Is considerably more powerful than the standard model, using eight infra-red LEDs to allow TVs to be turned off from distances of up to 100 meters (300 feet). TV-B-Gone Pro SHP is switchable between its North American and European databases of POWER codes. Later, in 2009, Mitch Altman made a new kind of TV-B-Gone Pro SHP. Instead of disguising it as an iPhone , Mitch Altman has made the new and improved TV-B-Gone look like an iPod Nano and go ten more yards than
84-409: The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show , an individual associated with Gizmodo brought a TV-B-Gone remote control and shut off many display monitors at booths and during demos affecting several companies. These actions caused the individual to be banned for life from future CES events. Mitch Altman Mitch Altman (born December 22, 1956) is a Berlin-based hacker and inventor of TV-B-Gone . He
96-487: The United States Department of Defense. Altman co-founded Silicon Valley start-up 3ware in February 1997 with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald (who is on the advisory board of Cornfield Electronics). Applied Micro Circuits Corporation agreed to acquire 3ware in 2004. Altman started Cornfield Electronics as a consulting company. After the launch of TV-B-Gone Altman gave the company the tagline "We make Useful Electronics for
108-566: The idea of a San Francisco hackerspace , at which time there were no hackerspaces in the United States. In October 2008 he co-founded Noisebridge , which was probably the third hackerspace formed in the US. Since then, Altman has traveled extensively, encouraging the formation of hackerspaces, holding panels and workshops on depression, teaching introductory electronics workshops to people of all ages and visiting electronics enthusiast groups around
120-472: The old one. The recent invention of >1W 850 and 970 nm IREDs makes a miniature long range version of the TV-B-Gone feasible. At several hacker conventions Mitch Altman has run workshops that allow participants to build their own TV-B-Gones using Adafruit Industries ' micro controller –based mini-POV kit. Around January 2008, Adafruit Industries released a kit to build an open source TV-B-Gone. During
132-598: The sale of 3ware to pay for the manufacture of the first 20,000 units of TV-B-Gone. By February 2014, he was reported to have sold more than 500,000 units. TV-B-Gone is in its 4th generation, and Altman developed a new product called the TV-B-Gone SHP (Super High Power). Mitch Altman is an important figure in the international "hackerspace" and "maker" movements. While attending the 2007 Berlin Chaos Communication Camp , Altman and Jacob Appelbaum began discussing
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#1732891363560144-594: The world. TedX Brussels invited Altman to give a Ted Talk the Hackerspace movement, Make magazine has referred to Altman as "the Johnny Appleseed of hackerspaces", and Altman, who has also written for the magazine, was awarded the first "Maker Hero" award—named in his honor—by Make Magazine on May 20, 2011. In September 2018, Altman announced that he had left Noisebridge. Chaos Communication Camp The Chaos Communication Camp (also known as CCCamp )
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