Anyone for TiVo

There's been a quiet revolution in Peter Vogel's living room. Whenever ads appear on his television the volume drops, the screen goes blank or the set switches channels.

It's not a technical fault. He has developed a way to dull, mute or delete noisy ads.

'It's had a dramatic effect on our household dynamic,' said the 49-year-old Blue Mountains inventor who already uses his Intelligent Content Engine (ICE) system when watching television with his daughters.

'Previously the kids would sit glued to the screen from beginning to end. Now when the commercials come on the volume drops and they talk to each other. The ads don't dominate.' As well, if children are barred from watching anything above PG, for example, it will detect and blank out MA-rated shows. 'There's even the potential to develop specialist ratings. A Christian rating, in theory, would stop kids watching programs deemed blasphemous, and a quality rating would filter programs according to their quality as assessed by a panel of experts.'

Wheres TiVo