newscientist.com — If a new idea from Philips catches on, the company may not be very popular with TV viewers. Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over.
Apr 18, 2006 View in Crawl 4
dig_dugApr 19, 2006
oh ho ho blow me :)... please, just go ahead and blow me. PAY?!?! to not view commercials?!?!?!?
Closed AccountApr 19, 2006
Screw Philips. I'd chuck my TV and get some good books. Not that I watch much TV anyway. DVD's are already doing this - you are forced to watch some crap before you get to the movie you paid money for. So I rip the DVDs and kill the ads.
craignobbsApr 19, 2006
I would stop watching television.
birdwatcher3000Apr 19, 2006
No wonder they have resorted to selling lightbulbs.
kruxApr 19, 2006
Two words: f**k That.
cmdrwhitewolfApr 19, 2006
Well, I can tell you that If they put that junk in any of my devices, that device would soon be gone. Plain and simple.Why? I already hate seeing Hollywood's unavoidable "commercials" (trailers- funny how we still use the name for what they used to be...) on DVDs now. That was what I bought the DVD player for in the first place - to AVOID them! It was originally one of DVD players big selling points, but it's not now.And if these same companies try and force legislation to the affect that it has to be on everything we buy - well then, goodbye entertainment industry, I'll be switching to a different less commercially sponsored and annoying form of entertainment! I've already moved off of broadcast TV, and am hardly on Cable TV now, you know...
ldanixApr 20, 2006
Any channel that utilizes this technology will be deleted from my channel list. If they are playing a show I want to see, torrents are just a click away.
ldanixApr 20, 2006
Any network or provider that actually implements this technology will only shoot themselves in the foot. I don't mind commercials, the money to produce the show has to come from somewhere. But if I can't change the channel, mute or lower the volume (which are the logical extensions to this technology), then I will obtain my programming from commercial-free sources, which is a huge backward step. If you don't want to "bite the hand that feeds you", don't encourage viewers to move to alternative sources for your programming.