Electronic device blocks objectionable words on television

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE - Rebekah Renfrow is mad as uh, heck, and she&#39;s not going to take it anymore. <br> <br> Her breaking point came when she watched an episode of ``Everybody Loves Raymond&#39;&#39; with her four young children and heard a certain derogatory reference to women that made her cringe. <br> <br> Renfrow was a waiting buyer weeks later when one of her children came home from school with a promotional flier about ProtecTV. The new electronic device -- a hand-sized box selling made in Georgia for $79.95 -- selectively mutes words and phrases that television viewers like Renfrow consider objectionable. <br> <br> Besides blocking the obvious lexicon of four-letter curse words, the device mutes or edits from closed-captioning scripts words such as stupid, moron, cocaine, horny, intercourse, hell and shut up. <br> <br> Every time a word is spoken it is compared to a dictionary of more than 400 offensive words and phrases and if the word matches, it is deleted from the soundtrack and captioning. The viewer will experience a momentary gap in the audio and for viewers reading the captions, the undesirable written word is replaced by XXXX&#39;s. <br> <br> The boxes, made by Global Cable Incorporated of Trenton, Georgia, can be connected to a television, VCR, cable box, DVD player or a satellite TV system. <br> <br> Global Cable Vice President Allan Ward says the company purchased worldwide rights to manufacture and sell ProtecTV last year after he saw it demonstrated at a cable product show in Toronto. <br> <br> Diane LaPierre, a former forklift operator from Calgary, Alberta, developed and patented the technology after trying to use closed captioning to help her teach her son to read.