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Apple Patents Tech to Stop iPhones Filming in Venues
An anonymous reader writes "A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera."
The police will love it once this is mandated by law in all phones!
Back in the day when we all whined that Microsoft was evil, we had *NO IDEA* what evil really was.
Ok, and exactly WHY as a iPhone customer, would I want such 'feature' on my phone?? Rather limiting I'd say.
Exactly so. What a huge sales disincentive.
Far be it from me to suggest Apple is doing something altruistic, but let me toss this out there:
Were they doing us all a favor by locking up this technology so that venues couldn't deploy it and/or demand it on all smart phones?
Seems vaguely possible, since without wide adoption in all handsets, this technology is useless, and won't be deployed anywhere. A patent is actually counter productive in the eyes of the venues and rights holders, as it limits the ability to deploy this.
Apple themselves would have little incentive to add yet another cripple feature in their phones considering that the competition would add no such thing. Unless Apple lobbied for smartphone exclusion zones, with the iPhone given a pass there would be no market incentive for this feature.
So why patent something that would be a huge sales disincentive if actually deployed?
Some middle eastern countries are cracking down on photos in public places, but I doubt they have a big enough market for this.
It makes no sense.
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