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Microsoft Patents Bad Neighborhood Detection
PolygamousRanchKid writes with these lines culled from InformationWeek: "With the grant of their US Patent #8090532 Microsoft may be attempting to corner the market on GPS systems for use by pedestrians, or they may have opened a fertile ground for discrimination lawsuits. ... Described as a patent on pedestrian route production, the patent describes a two-way system of building navigation devices targeted at people who are not in vehicles, but still require the use of such a device to most efficiently route to their destination. ... For example, the user inputs their destination and any constraints or requirements they might have, such as a wheelchair accessible route, types of terrain they are willing to cross, the option of public transportation, and a way point such as the nearest Starbucks on the route. Any previously configured preferences are also considered, such as avoiding neighborhoods that exceed a certain threshold of violent crime statistics (hence the description of this as the 'avoid bad neighborhoods' patent), fastest route, most scenic, etc." Having lived in some high-crime neighborhoods, the actual feature (versus the patent) sounds like a great idea to me.
RTFS: "neighborhoods that exceed a certain threshold of violent crime statistics."
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Why should we all have to suffer at the hands of being politically correct? A bad neighborhood is what it is - BAD! It So that someone in that "bad" neighborhood isn't "offended" why should I have to risk my safety?
I wish something like this would have existed when I chose my current house. The neighborhood looks great during the day but once it becomes dark all the bums and the freaks come out. They are all drunk or high and they do things out of "boredom" (as a police officer told me). Like vandalize my car and leave bloody handprints on the glass.
Crime rates don't care what you call home, and if I'm travelling _I_ don't care what you call home.
If you live in a high crime area, you don't need me as a visitor. You have no complaint.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Or a man of the night. Or several men of the night who are all too happy to see you.
Also, they're patenting the idea of the algorithm "that say don't go this way... etc." Not an actual algorithm. No methods were harmed during the making of this filing. I would call that worse. Here's the patent so you can wince for yourself.
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Google maps already has a feature that allows you to avoid tolls or "by foot" versions.
Add info from stuff like this:
http://www.nwgangs.com/gang-territory-maps.html
http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=200807321660978094818&hl=en&gl=us&ptab=2
And so where's the innovation?
I personally think patents are costing society more than the benefit they provide. Sure a few patents might be worthwhile, but when most of them are crap, what's the point? It's as stupid as throwing money at a game which provides worse odds than most casinos. A few wins don't make up for all the losses.
You want to reward and encourage _people_ for innovating? Award Prizes for Innovation instead. It's always easier to see if something was innovative and valid from hindsight than from an overworked patent examiner's POV. You could have different areas and different categories, some chosen by "randomly selected citizens", and some chosen by "experts in the field". A bit like the Hugo and Nebula awards. That way you get some balance.
If I were a mugger, I'd use it to locate 'good' neighborhoods, and start mugging people there. A device to find new fat hunting grounds. I'd love it.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
You live in Baltimore?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Use this tool to figure out which route the rich kids with cell phones are taking and relieve them of their property.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
If you live in a high crime area, you don't need me as a visitor. You have no complaint.
Well, unless he is a criminal, in which case he does want you as a visitor.
On a more serious note though, shying folks away from certain neighborhoods will decrease business to those areas, depressing them even further and, well, encouraging more crime. If this ever caught on, it would open a basket of crap. What if Bing goofed and blacklisted the wrong neighborhood? What if the bad neighborhood is trying to get some kind of renewal going, and businesses there desperately need the income? This would only delay things further, perhaps to the point of failure.
I get the whole safety concept of it, but honestly, this begins to meddle in a lot of things that really shouldn't be meddled in.
Okay, case in point: Highway 71 through Kansas City. Going southbound, it is very easy to miss a vital turn-off, and get deposited into one very rotten neighborhood. OTOH, during the day the folks are friendly enough, and I was able to ask directions, get gas, buy snacks, and one time to get a bad tire replaced. Once the sun went down, that place was not where you wanted to be (nearly everyone I spoke to there said as much), but during the day it was no problem. It eventually got so that I intentionally made stops there if I was passing through during the day, because quite a few of the business owners were very glad to see a stranger's face, the prices were reasonable, and they were a hell of a lot friendlier than the ones in better neighborhoods (let alone the truck stops).
As someone who spent a good share of his childhood living in such areas, I'm not put off by the fact that often I was often the only caucasian-skinned guy in some of the establishments, so I guess my lack of anxiety may be a factor in all of this.
In all though, that's a whole lot of subtle nuances that I sincerely doubt an algorithm could pick up on, and I suspect that a lot of otherwise good people are going to get screwed over by this thing.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Good luck making that work. The government crime data that this feature will be using is usually out of date and highly massaged by police departments and officials with a stake in the crime rates. See, for example this NY Times article.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Sorry, but Detroit called 'dibs'.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
WTF? My ignorance of crime rates is something that shouldn't be meddled in, because I have an imagined obligation to support businesses I know nothing about? Your choice to support businesses in what you describe as "one very rotten neighborhood" is *your* choice. I'd like to have access to crime data, if available, before I walk through an area that I'm unfamiliar with. If, as you suggest, there is some significant difference in crime incidence during daylight hours as opposed to darkness, I'd like to know that, also. The idea that merchants who are unknown to me are somehow entitled to my ignorance of crime rates, though, is bizarre.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
What we have is a legal requirement to not choose who we buy our goods from based on race or minority status of the owner/employees.
That's not true, you're allowed to buy your goods from whoever you choose, for any reason you choose. That is freedom of association.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
We all know there'll be lawsuits with people complaining that Bing Maps is avoiding minority neighborhoods.
People have tried that for years with pizza delivery services. We had a large map on the wall, with several areas blocked off. If you live in that area..no pizza for you. The store simply says "We don't deliver to that neighborhood." Discrimination, racism, lawsuit ensues.
If you're aware of any lawsuits that have been successful, I'd like to hear about them.
Yeah, places can change a lot between day and night. And simply assuming you will be mugged because you are in what's supposed to be a rotten neighbourhood will make you ooze fear and contempt.
I have a similar story only slightly more idiotic.
A colleage and I had a had a 6 months gig in Derby. Since Nottingham is only a stone throw away we decided to have a night-out in this astonishing but also slightly infamous city. Now, I wouldn't call my colleage street-smart. So there we were. At 10pm in some dark inner city alley in Notts sometimes November. And we were a bit lost.So he unfolds right then and there, I kid you not, a street plan. In the dark alley. 10 metres away from two shady figures hanging out in a dark doorway. As I inched away from my colleague fully prepared to leg it and leave him to his Darwin award they started to saunter towards us.
-Hey there, mate!
-Goot evenink(My colleage had a very thick German accent. The thing is, Germans are not as popular in England as you might think. Shocking, I know...)
-You lost? That's where I took over. Survival instincts, I guess.
-Actually yes. There's supposed to be a place that has live music at this hour but we can't quite locate it. *shows the name that I had written down*
-Yep, I know it. It's a cool place.
-Say, you lot look bored. Come with us. My treat.
-Ok.By the way, mate, unfolding a map like you just did is not very clever.
Turned out they too had watched the latest episode of Top Gear and we prepared a list of preopsterous complaints the BBC would get for JC driving that Range Rover up that hill. Bullshit bingo British. The complaints turned out to be even beyond our wits having been sharpend by multiple pints of bitter.
Easy as that. They could also have been 'orrible muggers and I swear to god, I was prepared to run as hell. Might have had to if we had mentioned that we quite liked Derby and wanted to see how the other half lives.
tl;dr:
Don't do anything idiotic.Be relaxed but watchful. Bring a mate and make sure you get a head start in case you have to leg it. As my dad used to say: Son, If you go on a journey, don't bring anything you aren't prepared to lose.
20 minutes into the future
It is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the subject specification, but one of ordinary skill in the art can recognize that many further combinations and permutations of the subject specification are possible. Accordingly, the subject specification is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
That little section there takes the rest of the cake with them.
Modded funny, but as someone who just recently moved to BalDimore from the midwest, this is more insightful.
My wife and I relied heavily on our GPS units to find places when we first got here. We would joke that the software seemed to have a "get crack" option enabled, as it routed us through some fairly scary neighborhoods.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?