Man builds gadget to silence annoying TV pundits
'Starkey, mute'
Whether it's Brian Cox telling you how amazing everything is or the Go Compare guy wobbling around to the rehashed tune he sings, television is awash with codswallop that can easily become annoying.
Many of us simply hit the mute button, or possibly even standby, should such irritations become too much to bear. However, one bright spark has created a tool which automatically silences the television set whenever a particular celebrity or displeasurable subject pops up. And brings back the volume when they shut up.
Matt Richardson's 'Enough Already' tool is able to decode the subtitle track generally transmitted alongside an image.
Using the Arduino platform with a Video Experimenter Shield, as well as a few lines of custom code, text is filtered for annoying keywords such as "Jeremy Kyle" or "Tinchy Stryder". If a phrase is found, the kit sends out an infra-red command to the TV silencing all content for 30 seconds.
Here's a video of how it works:
The Enough Already project is still very much in its infancy, and Richardson reckons the kit could be used for much more. He even talks up potential for a TV inebriation game in which a light flashes every time a particular word or phrase is used, signalling a shot is in order.
Nice to see someone has their practical thinking drinking cap on. ®
COMMENTS
Pah! Had one of these for ages
It's even built into the remote control. There's a little red button (obviously completely unknown to people who continuously complain about TV programmes: "I've just watched the third episode of .... and it's still rubbish") that immediately removes both sight and sound of any annoying individual from the TV. Even better, it saves electricity while doing so.
I think this device is revolutionary - it's certainly changed the way I watch TV and I'm recommending it to all my friends. There's even a handy feature on DVR's - they can be set to record programmes you don't like and play them when you're not in.
Personally, I've never watched a programme I don't like. If I don't like it, I don't watch. Why's that so hard?
Prior art...
This reminds me very much of my greasemonkey script that turns any article by Andrew Orlowski into nothing but "Blah blah blah blah blah blah"!
Mislead Underwealmed
The description at the start of the article sounds fantastic, something that automatically mutes when a particular person is speaking and unmutes when they stop speaking... then the rest of the article explains that this isn't actually the case it just mutes for 30 seconds if the persons name is mentioned which frankly is a bit rubbish - they could still be talking after 30 seconds or it could just be a news report saying that person has been fired off into space along with a load of telephone sanitizers (great news that I want to hear).
Now a version 2 which actually did as described and used voice recognition to quickly detect when the person was and was no longer speak would be fantastic.
TV.... TV.......
Wait a minute, I know I have one here somewhere... Oh yes, behind the bookcase, covered in dust.
At least technically its a TV. We just ignore the tuner and call it "the spare monitor".
I'd plug it in again some day, but if you turn it on it lets the stupid into the house.
