News Articles

Chiptalk-- August 06, 2001

Dave Ross reporting:

Most TV programs have closed-captioning, and therein lies a way to monitor them all. TV Eyes is a service that will alert you whenever a closed-captioned show broadcasts a word or phrase that you select.

If you want to be alerted, for example, when someone says "tax cut," you can ask it to search for that. Or if you're trolling for investments, you can have it hit on the phrase "strong buy."

When it picks up on your phrase, TV Eyes sends out a real-time alert by e-mail, pager or an alert displayed on your TV screen if you happen to be watching a different channel. It's basically an automated TV clipping service. Enter your topic, your e-mail address, your ZIP code, choose a password, and you have your own set of TV Eyes. The most requested topics this week, by the way, include Code Red, Chandra Levy, Gary Condit and the perennial favorite Britney Spears.

The professional version of TV Eyes, for people who need to keep track of specific industries or competitors, charges a fee, but the demo costs nothing. Www.tveyes.com, or get the link at chiptalk.com.

This is Dave Ross.