Avoidance of commercial breaks is an honorable yet under-assisted pursuit according to the inventor of a canny new tv-remote button. Ben Wadlington, Jr. characterizes his patent-pending creation, aka GlimpseBoy, as a previous-channel button on steroids.

When pressed, it transfers viewing one step back into channel-tuning history, pauses to permit a fractional-second peek at commercial-break progress, then transfers viewing forward again to the channel of origin. The same effect can be invoked by pressing a regular previous-channel button once, pausing briefly and then pressing it again.

"But, the GlimpseBoy way is much more satisfying," says Wadlington. "GlimpseBoy further trumps its alternatives when commercial breaks occur simultaneously on both channels."

On such occasions, a slightly prolonged GlimpseBoy-button press will initiate a cycle of alternating pauses entailing the previous channel and the channel of origin. During any pause, a subsequent/deactivation press will halt GlimpseBoy in its tracks such that the pause is indefinitely extended.