Company lets viewers automatically avoid TV commercials

A German company has announced a set-top box with Android and a quad-core processor, which is able to avoid live advertising. If the user zaps to a channel that is currently showing commercials, that channel is skipped.

With the Telefairy 3.0, which closely resembles Intel’s NUC housing, the user can further specify what to do if a program he or she is watching is interrupted by a commercial break. The set-top box can then automatically mute the sound or switch to a channel or program that the user likes.

The system would be self-learning and thus be able to ‘recognize’ what the viewer likes, based on their preferences in terms of actors, movie titles and so on. The user can also indicate that a website should be opened during a commercial, such as Facebook or Gmail. When the commercial is over, Telefairy automatically returns to the channel.

The Telefairy 3.0 includes its own TV tuner and would be a full TV receiver. The processor is an Amlogic S802 quad-core with Cortex A9 cores and there is 8GB of internal storage. The set-top box runs Android 4.4. The box would support the resolution of 3840×2160 pixels.

The Telefairy also supports WiFi-n, Bluetooth and infrared and there is also an Ethernet interface. Peripherals such as storage media, keyboards and USB sticks can be connected via the two USB ports, and there are also HDMI and a memory card reader. In an upcoming update, the company wants to make it possible to bring the TV platform streaming to smartphones, tablets and laptops, for example to watch on the go.

Telefairy does not clarify exactly how the system works and that is not clear from the manual. The company has been working on its technology since 1999, but has had to deal with numerous legal setbacks in its home country of Germany. With the third version of its set-top box, the company also wants to enter the American and Asian markets.