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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."
Haven't we been here before?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There's absolutely no way anyone would ever abuse such technology. Nope. Unpossible.
Don't buy an iphone if this bothers you.
I like a lot of apple products, but in this case I think i'll pass on the new iphone.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
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.
How would you tell the difference (in software) between "no infrared signal because I'm not in a movie theater" and "no infrared signal because I am in a movie theater and someone put tape over the sensor"?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Just hold your thumb over the sensor, that should work.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Yes, this story is obviously a dupe.
But I think as soon as we start making such devices so they are geared to have copyright (and whim) enforced upon you, it's a bad thing.
Sooner or later, governments or police will be sure that you can't film them doing things they don't want by blanketing the place in IR that says "no recording". And, really, this will be abused both domestically, and abroad. Having the ability to shut off recording devices remotely is a horrible idea.
This is caving in way too much, and continues the trend that sooner or later we won't be able to have general purpose computers because rights-holders figure they're all going to be used to steal their stuff.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
ohhhhhh, I see what you're insinuating. The iPhone is like a golf course... Although I don't know if I'd refer to beverage cart girls as guards, you must be playing golf at a different country club than me.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
Or even scarier, Apple favoring Cops over users.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Gates understood, according to his testimony in the Clinton Justice Dept case, that it only takes one mistake to wipe a company out. This comes right on the heels of the location scare. This could blow up into "next they'll shutdown cameras during a Rodney King beating", and iPhone becomes the Brave New World gateway device.
AAPL must come out quickly and deal with this, otherwise this news could send customers and devs right into Android's welcoming arms.
http://10CentMail.com - the Amazon SES app.
they are so damn sycophantic its pathetic, i dont want some over-priced crappy phone obeying big brother
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The iPhone 5 will have tape sensors around the IR sensors.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Mainly in Florida, Boston and Compton, California
The camera is the receiver... So if you cover the receiver it's not like you are gonna be recording anyway.
PROTIP: turn on the camera on your phone, then point the emitter of an IR remote (such as TV remote) at the lens. Press a button and see the magic!
this + this = paparazzi-proof . Sell 'em to celebs for $2500 a pop.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is dumb. Patenting it will prevent others from being dumb in a similar way.
and in "townhall" venues where politicians often make fools of themselves
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Buying (or even finding and using) an iPhone is saying that Apple is right to do stupid shit like this. Please, please PLEASE be smart, and vote with your wallet.
The iPhone means no freedom to use your purchases as you want, and no avenue for recourse because "whatever they say, goes". Buy something else.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
I don't want my electronic gadgets to be told what to do by other sources....I want it up to ME what I film and don't film,etc.
So, when the cops are beating someone, will they be deploying or wearing these nifty IR devices to prevent us, the general public from filming them?!?!?
I mean, aside from the lameness of this, fixing a problem that isn't there....what about the abuses of this?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
How long till cops put these on their cars, or make some belt-attached version to stop citizen recordings?
Zing!
And I want Apple to defend it with all the power it has... So that only Apple devices are blocked and all other devices are unaffected.
Eh.. not so much. Windows is the more free and open one.
I know, it sounds weird to me too.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I remember thinking it would be useful to use the SSID of wireless access points to issue commands to cameras to disable things like the flash (useful in an art gallery for instance). It turns out there are already a whole bunch of patents which have been issued in the last 10 years which cover this idea.
Ah good call. I should've checked the source first, too. Fox never gets anything right.
Fox gets far more right than you'd ever like to admit. Anytime you say "always" or "never" you're automatically wrong. Fox News is worth watching for the stories that they uncover that the rest of the media tries as hard as possible to Ignore. If you want to remain in your blissful ignorance you can ignore FN, since it is only for those who want to be as informed as possible. Without FN you might not have heard about this story at all.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wait a minute. The CMOS (not CCD IIRC) image sensor in the iPhone samples very, very slowly. At 30Hz, tops. The signal, to avoid problems with interference from flashing incandescents, etc, must be much faster than that. Think kilohertz. Probably the transmitter in the venue use standard 30-something kHz carrier used by remotes. You cannot sense this with a general purpose CMOS image sensor. You need a dedicated photodiode. Now of course they may go crazy and integrate a beam splitter in front of the image sensor to grab light for the diode, so that if you blind the photodiode, the image sensor is blinded too. This may add too much cost, though, so I'd think they'd slap the photodiode right next to the camera, but not in its optical path.
One thing I worry about is what sort of a transmitter optical power you need to make it reliably work. You don't want to scorch the retinas of someone who uses binoculars, for example. For that matter, there are binoculars with photo and video recording built in, even ones that look like old fashioned theater binocs ;)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
So, instead of police busting up iPhones when they shoot someone down in their car, they'll just flash your phone with some twisted Men in Black device?
Yet ANOTHER reason I'll never go back to an iPhone.
I8-D
And that's why when you patent an interdiction technology, you should also patent the method for defeating that technology. That way you can sue everyone for infringement.
BTW, TiVo stumbled upon something similar accidentally. A Series2 or earlier TiVo that needs to control an external tuner via IR cannot not do so if it is being exposed to infrared light. It delays sending the signal until the common IR signaling bus is clear. So if you had IR remote repeaters that were prone to RF interference, you might not record what you had intended. Since it was the TiVo being affected, not the cable box, no amount of tenting the cable box would help. (One recording of mine didn't change the channel for 55 minutes, so I only caught the last 5 minutes of the program.) This however wouldn't qualify as prior art.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
PROTIP: turn on the camera on your phone, then point the emitter of an IR remote (such as TV remote) at the lens. Press a button and see the magic!
That is in fact useful for determining whether it is your remote or the IR sensor in the device that has gone bad before investing in a replacement remote (particularly if it is a Sony device).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Fox gets far more right than you'd ever like to admit
Well played, sir.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Apple fan, but maybe... just maybe they're patenting this so that no one else can do it, thus effectively keeping this "innovation" from ever seeing the (infrared) light of day. Kind of like a defensive patent.
No rule says that they have to put this into any product. Or am I just too optimistic?
It's just an invention that they are making a legal claim of ownership of.
They do this so that they may at some point make use of it. They made decide not to. The fact that they see potential in it is the problem.
Yet another apologist.
Sorry, being able to discern between reality and fantasy does not make one an apologist.
Reality is Apple has countless patents that they never make use of. Reality is some companies reward or otherwise encourage employees to submit patents. Reality is simply having a patent, even one a company never intends to use, can be of strategic value. Reality is, this is an invention, worthy of patenting.
And reality is, iPhones don't do this now.
It's definitely possible, but makes little sense, for Apple to implement this patent. Acting like they are going to is not rational.
Nevermind the fact that companies like Apple patent things they never implement.
They patent things because they may want to implement them.
That's *a* reason. Another reason is that someone else might want to implement them. Another reason is that a camera maker, like Kodak, might want to sue Apple, and such a patent would give them leverage.
Oh, btw. A camera maker (Kodak) is suing Apple right now, and camera related patents would have helped Apple greatly.
Another reason is that it's an invention, and it's always nice to have a patent on an invention, even if you see no point in it right now. Another reason is employees get incentivized to take out patents.
That they may never do so doesn't mean it was OK to file the patent in the first place.
You've yet to show how it's not OK to patent an invention like this. Apple customers are voluntary. This patent will not force anyone to buy a product which uses this patent.
Right now that's true, because no product uses this patent. And in an unlikely, but possible future, it's true because no one has to buy an iPhone.
If I drew up specific and actionable plans to bomb your house, you would object without me acting on it.
Yes, if you intended to kill me, I'd do much more than object to it. But just talking about it (like you just did) is not the same as having any intention whatsoever of actually doing it.
I know the difference between what exists and what does not exist.