“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,” Brian Lam reports for Gizmodo.
Full article with video, “Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES,” here.
Maybe because it’s Friday evening and we’re getting silly, but we can’t stop laughing when watching this video! (We’ve probably been to far too many trade shows; anything to break the monotony – especially at the pointless, overkill CES – is always welcome.) Plus, this is just so Woz-like, it’s like a tribute to the Apple co-founder!
Gizmodo is going straight to tech hell.
…been watching AAPL drop another 5 bucks today and all stressed out trying to know when to execute the buy order for more of the stuff.
“Something in the Air” had better be something or I’m going to get it at an even lower price this time next week and, if tha’ts the case, how much lower will it go. Oh, there I go again… got any more of these funnies?
What a bunch of immature jerks. I hope they get their press passes revoked for this. It’s not funny, it’s just childish and incredibly inconsiderate. What if that guy gets fired for that presentation goof-up?
Gizmodo has crossed the line on this one, and MDN should be ashamed for posting it.
In college, I built small TV jammers. I’d go to the one dorm that had a color TV, sit in the back, in the dark, and tune in my jammer. The screen got messed up, not totally but enough to bother everyone. Without any plan, a friend in the front row, who knew what was going on (I hope he did) whacked the TV. I instantly turned the jammer off and the TV worked fine.
For weeks I would occassionally turn the jammer on. It took more and more students turning more and more dials on the color TV until it would finally work. One time I actually was one of the ones adjusting the fine tuning control and all, operating the jammer in my other hand. I never got caught.
One evening, about three people were whacking and adjusting the TV from all sides. I noticed that one of them had his hand on the screen, so I turned the jammer off. As they breathed a sigh of relief, the hand came off the screen and I turned the jammer back on. One of them said “freeze, where were your bodies” because by this time they all knew that it could sometimes have something to do with where your body was. Eventually the one guy reached out to the screen again and I turned off the jammer. He figured it out and started testing, hand on, hand off, hand on again. I kept pace. Then this guy put his foot down from the chair it was in (he was standing) and I made the TV go bad again. He picked up his foot and it went good. He announced that it was some sort of ‘grounding’ effect and left his foot in the air (on the chair) and his hand on the middle of the screen for the last 30 minutes of a “Mission Impossible” show.
On another occassion, when the TV went bad, one guy said that the repairman had made a point about it being an antenna problem. To test this, he held up the older style, twin lead, antenna wire and the TV cleared up. He put the wire down and the jamming started. After a while, the TV went bad even as he held the antenna wire off the ground. So he raised it higher with success. Later it went bad again and he climbed up on a chair to get the TV working. Then he had to stand on the chair with the antenna held above his head. For my final feat, I only let the TV work when he stood on his tiptoes on this chair.
I remember my first remote control watch. I could turn off TV’s in stores and other places all the time, very discretely. My sons loved these.
Maybe doing that on dumb displays in the halls, but doing it to someone presenting is a bit too much.
Now if there were a similar device for cell phones…
These guys should be embarrassed by their actions …. not the least bit funny … very disconcerting that MDN would think this is cute and harmless … wonder what MDN would say if someone pulled a stunt like this on Mr. Jobs …. love Apple … like MDN … but this was just not very nice …
Just blame it on Vista.
@Woz – that big long story of yours just means you are some kind of mean spirited jerk. Glad to hear your sons liked it too
With macs you can pair the remote with the device, and this gets controlled
@bob:
Why didn’t people at a consumer entertainment show just block the IR ports on the TV? that seems like a pretty obvious thing to do considering the number of people going through the event and the potential for this to happen.
Steve,
They will now!
@Steve … I get that those in control should be far more diligent … I was only talking about the human spirit … why did these guys feel the need to be disruptive … still … people are working and what they did wasn’t very nice ..
It was just announced that CEA has banned Gizmodo for life from CES. Which, considering the lackluster reviews that have been dribbling in, will be about two years.
This will mean that Gizmodo will be devoting more page space to the pre-Macworld rumors next year, while CNet and ZDvorakNet will continue reporting underwhelming Microsoft concept products that will never see the light of day. So everybody wins. (Well, everybody who matters.)
@bob:
Agreed, it’s disruptive, and maybe not nice. I, however, appreciate a good prank even when I’m the victim. If the presenters can’t laugh at this, they take themselves too seriously. You’re presenting to nerds at a tech show, don’t make yourself out to be more important than you are
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Jacob, MaLvado, bob, jim,
Lighten up, Francis.
Man that was a terrible thing to do to those exhibitors.
LOVED IT!!!!
Gizmodo wasn’t walking around punching cancer kids in the face, they were pranking fat nerds with bad jobs and even worse haircuts.
You fscking people who take offense to Gizmodo’s prank are the epitome of what’s wrong in this world today.
If the world was full only of people who appreciate this sort of stuff, we’d all be better off.
Lighten up, Francis, indeed!
It’s a fscking trade show full of nerds, not anything of goddam importance.
At next year’s CES, Gizmodo should set off an EMP.
I’m trying to be outraged…but looking at the video….that was straight up hilarious!!! Will never happen again tho
Working these expos is so stressful and there’s so much money on the line, I think they definitely went overboard. Once or twice might have been funny, but to just sabotage expensive presentations is pretty lame – especially when these are fellow tech people just trying to make a living. Gizmodo’s reputation definitely dropped to adolescent in my book.
If you don’t find this at least a bit amusing, if not absolutely hilarious, you’re not a real Mac user.
Get lost. Go back to your piece of shit Dell and Windoze, you conformist, Oprah-fied, pussies.
Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
Are the ones who do.
There is a similar device for cell phones.
The majority of Americans are uptight assholes, in my experience. I must meet only the types like Jacob, MaLvado, bob, and jim.
When did they hack off your sacks, at birth, or did you just get feminized over time by your insipid, plastic, TV-driven, meaningless non-culture over there in ‘Merica?
Funny?
Maybe the first time they did it. After that, it was just plain childish and silly!
No wonder MDN was so easily entertained.
“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?” – Steve Jobs
I can’t take this video, I have not laughed this hard in decades.