Hardware News

Nuggets: Torture your kids with a TIC

Justin Pearse ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 01 Feb 2000 07:08 GMT

Andrew Goodwill has come up with a device called the TIC (Timed Internet Connection) designed to thwart those all-night online Quake sessions your children are so fond of.

The TIC is a small piece of hardware that plugs into a modem. It's got a built-in numeric keypad that lets you program the amount of time that the modem is active within any 24-hour period. Which means that you can sit downstairs chuckling cruelly as you little ones desperately try to get online.

The TIC operates via built-in timer circuits, which disconnect the modem from the Internet once the programmed time limit is up. There's a warning signal five minutes before this happens.

Don't worry if you don't trust your kids not to try and circumvent it -- there's a series of LED lights that show if the unit has been tampered with, or whether an unauthorised person has tried to reprogram it. All the unit's features are password protected.

If you are keen to upset your nearest and dearest you can get hold of one now for £39.99.

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