Slashdot Mirror
Apple Awarded Anti-Sexting Patent
eldavojohn writes "If your parenting skills aren't up to snuff, Apple's got a patent on the device that will allow you to control what your child sends and receives. Entitled 'Text-based communication control for personal communication device,' this patent uses examples like increasing the number of Spanish words your child receives so that they can better learn Spanish. You could even use it to control your child's grammar and spelling in outgoing text messages. But news sources seem to be focusing on the censorship issue that Apple has been criticized for before: 'The control is in line with earlier efforts adopted by Apple like Playboy which entered into a deal with Apple to censor its content to secure a place in App Store.' Perhaps the wives and agents of popular athletes would be more interested in this technology? Apple is certainly sending a message opposite to the one Microsoft advertises."
A Favre jab on slashdot? Seriously?
I knew this place was going down the crapper, but I didn't think it had hit the "E! TV" level of low yet...
News flash, dearest parents. Controlling everything that your child does is not good parenting. Yes, the kids will mess up every now and then. So do we all. If you impose a lot of rules, monitor every little thing that your child does, then all they will do is find a way around whatever blocks / rules you have in place. They have a LOT of energy, and endless free time.
tl:dr - Being a good parent does not mean monitoring every little action.
I, for one, am looking forward to the wave of creative new euphemisms this is going to spawn.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So the summary went from an anti sexting patent, some parental control application, to learning Spanish by changing the phone's default language, and finally to close a way to protect our celebrities from their antics.
I don't tend to complain about the summaries, but man I guess I am going to have to go and read the article now to make sense of this summary.
Quite honestly, I hope this is the last one
I regretfully inform you that you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
"If you're parenting skills aren't up to snuff, Apple's got a patent on the device that will allow you to control what you child sends and receives.
This space for rent.
What needs to happen is that managers need to stop grading people on their behavior and focus instead on things related to work. Just because someone had a few drinks once and has some pictures on Facebook with them holding a beer doesn't make them not qualified.
When managers finally pull their head out of their buzzword-laced asses and realize that we are all humans, and that personal and private lives rarely are similar and simply give jobs to people who are qualified, this will be a non-issue.
If I was a manager, I wouldn't care if my applicant was a drunk, enjoys partying on the weekends and hell, so long as they showed up to work and got the work done decently, I couldn't care less if they showed up to work hungover in the morning.
But alas, I don't think I can handle all the buzzwords to become a manager.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Just wait until you have to clean the holodecks.
At least the iPhone camera will prevent them from texting the money shot....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So the summary went from an anti sexting patent, some parental control application, to learning Spanish by changing the phone's default language, and finally to close a way to protect our celebrities from their antics.
I don't tend to complain about the summaries, but man I guess I am going to have to go and read the article now to make sense of this summary.
Well, I apologize for the apparently incomprehensible summary. I didn't say anything at all about changing the phone's default language. The phone would just ensure that the child is sending or receiving messages with a certain amount of Spanish in them to ensure the child learns Spanish. Basically this patent could be used for censorship and/or replacement. That entails a lot of things and the patent itself alludes to a lot of possibilities. The media jumps on the 'think of the children' point of view but I tried to point out adults need it just as well. This could include anything from blocking certain folks from seeing certain words to replacing English words with Spanish in order to facilitate learning.
You're not going to read the patent but if you read the summary:
Systems, devices, and methods are provided for enabling a user to control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device. In some embodiments, a message will be blocked (incoming or outgoing) if the message includes forbidden content. In other embodiments, the objectionable content is removed from the message prior to transmission or as part of the receiving process. The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria. The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application. These techniques also may be used, in accordance with instructional embodiments, to require the administered devices to include certain text in messages. These embodiments might, for example, require that a certain number of Spanish words per day be included in e-mails for a child learning Spanish.
Of course given Apple's history, we can only wonder what kind of censorship they're trying to facilitate. It's about filtering text messages and e-mails (which I guess are starting to blend on smart phones). Sorry to stymie you with specific possibilities of what the patent could be used for.
My work here is dung.
It is very difficult to define correct grammar, to start with. (Note false positive for preposition stranding)
Moreover, spelling corrections may disrupt the vital Cupertino between parent and child. (Note Cupertino effect)
Thus I would expect such controls to have no effect, once or ever. (eggcorn)
Because of times when splitting the infinitive is required, I would never expect demand to more than double from where it is today.
Should the passive voice be allowed?
etc.
Technology can't enforce grammar rules effectively.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
When it came to how I grew up, it was very lax, to say the least. I could go where I wanted, do what I wanted, and I never ended up getting in trouble, ever. No drugs, no nothing. It's when parents try to start controlling every little thing their kids do that they want to start lying and doing the things their parents tell them to do. PROTIP: Let them have some freedom once in a while. If you notice your child starts to become evasive when you ask them questions or just evasive in general, then it's time to intervene and ask them what's going on. But if your child thinks they're going to be punished or you're going to be disappointed if they tell you something, they won't do it. Teach them what's acceptable and what isn't and let them find out what happens after that. Don't treat them like babies and have them wearing diapers when they are 32.
"He noticed that she never used Newspeak words except the ones that had passed into everyday use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog."
From 1984 by George Orwell