There were interviews with the inventor of this last year on various National Public Radio programs. It is for real, simply set to cover the spectrum of the "on/off" buttons of televisions.

I suppose the savvy retailer who doesn't want their televisions turned off by such a device could set two TVs side-by-side at every location, one on and one off. The sneak with the TV-B-Gone would end up turning the other on when they turned the first one off.

SRS