Cleaning up the environment

That's what this inventor's latest breakthrough is designed to do:

a new universal remote that turns off almost any television. The device, which looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.

For Altman, founder of Silicon Valley data-storage maker 3ware, the TV-B-Gone is all about freeing people from the attention-sapping hold of omnipresent television programming. The device is also providing hours of entertainment for its inventor.

At a Laundromat and cafe down the street, a lone man sorted clothes in the glow of larger-than-life bikini babes on a 60-inch Sony HDTV. A punch of the button and the screen instantly went dark. He went on folding his T-shirts, seemingly unaware of the change.

Mitch Altman, the key-fob's 48-year-old inventor, ranks this invention of his right up with the best of what he has produced in the past. The initial idea arose in the early 1990's when he and some friends noticed how a TV on the wall in a restaurant interrupted their conversation. It took until now to produce the tiny product that can turn off just about any TV in the U.S. There is an Asian and European model, as well, the latter tested in EuroDisney where it successfully turned off a bank of TV's endlessly playing a loop of ads in a parent-waiting area for rides.

It can do more than just turn TV's off; a less-publicized capability is that it also turns on any TV.