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TVs That Turn Themselves On
from the warning,-warning dept
Later this year, new TVs will be on the market with an added feature: if there's some sort of important storm warnng, the TV will turn itself on to let you know. On first reading this, my fear was that this sort of service would eventually be abused in an Orwellian sort of fashion. "We are now forcing you to watch this Presidential broadcast, please stand at a attention". However, the current implementation is customer controlled, and has different levels of alerts, from just a light indicator, to tuning in to a weather warning, or even having a siren. For people in tornado country, such a system sounds very useful.
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something to think about
What would people say if Microsoft announced this?
- adam
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it's cold out here
Thanks for reminding me that I live in Tornado country Mike.
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Does it run on batteries?
Usually, speaking from experience, when the weather is that bad, the power goes out.
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They've had this for years
It sounds like they are just putting a weather radio inside a TV set. Its a pretty good way to get those into more homes but my friend had one 10 years ago and it would go off whenever there was a severe storm or tornado warning. It would make a very loud noise followed by an NWS broadcast.
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I grew up in tornado country. They just had these loud sirens (think air-raid sirens) that sounded if a tornado was in the area--oh 20 years ago. That seems like a simpler, cheaper, and more effective method than "everyone buy TV's that turn themselves on when sent special signals, and then program them to alert you that a tornado is coming."
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My TV turns off by itself, an occurence that freaks me out. Quite frankly, if it turned itself on as well, I would probably go grey overnight, like the Mother in "Poltergeist."
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