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Apple Camera Patent Lets External Transmitters Disable Features
sticks_us writes with news of an Apple patent application, recently published by the USPTO, for an on-board camera system that would include circuitry for processing external infrared signals. The data received from these signals could then be used to present information to the user of the device, or even to modify the device's operation.
"For example, an infrared emitter could be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter could generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device could then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device's recording function based on the command. ... In some embodiments, a device may apply a watermark to detected images as an alternative to completely disabling a recording function."
Apple has tapped into a pretty nice market there. They'll make quite a bit just selling portable IR transmitters that cops can wear on their belts--for when our boys in blue need to enforce a little extra discouragement on handcuffed perps and don't want to deal with any pesky pinkos filming or taking pictures.
Not only that, but by holding the patent, they stand to make a fortune when the government decides to make it mandatory in all new cameras.
That Steve Jobs is nothing if not a money-making machine. I bet he'll have every college student in the U.S. lined up around the block to buy one of these "enhanced" cameras. He's like one of those Bond villians who comes up with a plan that's undeniably horrific and evil, but also damned creative and ingenious.
Meanwhile the old Bond villian, Bill Gates, is off fighting AIDS in Africa. Guess that's like when Jaws became a good guy in Moonraker.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I am frequently baffled by some of the stuff that Apple gets away with patenting. In this case, the patent described would(to my layman's inspection) appear to be a mere subset of Microsoft's (equally odious and sinister) 2008 "Digital Manners" patent, except that that patent covered a much broader range of possible prohibition/settings propagation media, and a much more generic set of possible commands.
Unfortunately, the universe's pulsars actually exist to transmit coded control messages to the deities of various pantheons, enforcing a strict "no mercy upon mortals" policy within the observable universe. Nobody is sure which eldrich ancient god holds the business-method patent on mercy; but it exists outside of time, so it won't be expiring any time soon.
Here is a list of printers that do and do not include the watermark...
Ken