The Viewer Chip

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Tim Collings of Stratford, Ontario was a consulant on electronic control devices, usually for industry. But he, along with many other Canadians, became concerned about the impact of television violence on children.
So he developed a decoding device that uses infrared signals to follow an interactive menu that parents can program to block out certain levels of violent programming. Broadcasters agreed to code their programming to indicate the level of violence, and the V-chip was born. The V, by the way, stands for Viewer, not Violence. Collings now teaches at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.