10/21/2004: 
Technologica
What is YOUR TV Doing?
from WPVI News by way of Reason Magazine
TV Calls Air Force for Help
CORVALLIS, OR-October 18, 2004 - It's the case of the TV that was calling for help.
An Air Force search and rescue alert was trigged by Chris van Rossman's flatscreen Toshiba TV. It has a built-in VCR, DVD and CD player. And an undocumented feature that has authorities scratching their heads.
Some sort of electric glitch was causing van Rossman's TV to transmit on the international distress frequency. The signal was picked up by a satellite and relayed to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Virginia.
Van Rossman had no idea until airmen, deputies and Corvallis, Oregon, police were knocking on the door of his apartment. The errant signal was traced to his TV set.
Van Rossman was warned to keep the TV off or face a $10,000 fine for sending a false distress signal.
A spokeswoman for Toshiba says they've never heard of this sort of problem before. But the company is promising to give van Rossman a new TV.
Is this a case of a sentient television in distress over having to watch reruns of "Melrose Place" or is this an unintended look into the strange devices that are being implanted in our new TVs which we are no longer allowed to open???
