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Taxi TV, Now With Less Initial Volume!
By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 31, 2011
Modified Oct 31, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 31, 2011
Modified Oct 31, 2011
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The new surveys that greet you on Taxi TV aren't the only changes that have recently been introduced to the annoying backseat boob tubes. Four years after the TVs started being standard in cabs, The Times is reporting that the two major Taxi TV vendors have recently, and quietly, started to lower the initial volume on them. And that's not all!
In addition to lowering the initial volume when you enter (a move that noise pollution-happy advertisers naturally don't like), CMT Taxi TV's have seen the volume button moved to the bottom of the screen and labeled "volume" — which still doesn't make it easy for the vision-impaired to deal with, but you can't win them all. CMT TV's make up about half the boxes in the system. Also? On all of those boxes you can now mute Taxi TVs during that irritating intro screen.
Though we haven't noticed the changes yet—have you?—we'll take 'em. Still, as much as we find Taxi TV irritating, we remember that it once was much worse. We still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat and find ourselves reciting the old celebrity buckle up messages that ran in cabs from 1997 to 2003. "Hello, this is Eartha Kitt. Cats have nine lives but unfortunately youuuu only have one..."
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