The Ultimate Universal Remote Control

TheMayor writes: "CNN.com has a story about how researchers at Maya Designs, Inc. and Carnegie-Mellon are trying to come up with a remote control that controls everything in your house. From the TV to the blender, these guys want to make an all-in-one piece to turn everything on and off. Now I wonder if I could remotely flush my toliet?"

Super-Remote Control Defined.

[mcrbids]

The biggest pain in the ass with "universal" remotes is that you have to spend at least a whole afternoon programming the !@# thing. Very !@# convenient...

So, what if you had a setup where you could call the company, their support staff'd ask for your model numbers, and they'd program it remotely!

Oh, and can you imagine, on this remote control, a big, back-lit display so that you could see what !@# button to push to turn the !@#!@ thing down?

So, what you have is a device that:
1) Can communicate with the parent company,
2) Has alot of buttons,
3) A small CPU in it,
4) A large backlit screen.

Sounds an awful lot like a cell phone, eh?

No, really! Just put an I/R LED at the end of your cell phone, it'd make an EXCELLENT UNIVERSAL REMOTE.

PDA?

[AndyAMPohl]

I like remotes that only need one hand to operate, and that you don't need to look at to see what you're pressing. I don't know. Might seem crazy.