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Apple Patents a Way To Keep People From Filming At Concerts and Movie Theaters (qz.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the remote-control dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple has patented a system that prohibits smartphone users from taking photos and videos at concerts, movie theaters and other events where people tend to ignore such restrictions. The patent has been award to Apple today and was first spotted by Patently Apple. QZ reports: "It outlines a system which would allow venues to use an infrared emitter to remotely disable the camera function on smartphones. According to the patent, infrared beams could be picked up by the camera, and interpreted by the smartphone as a command to block the user from taking any photos or videos of whatever they're seeing. The patent also outlines ways that infrared blasters could actually improve someone's experience at a venue. For example, the beams could be used to send information to museum-goers by pointing a smartphone camera at a blaster placed next to a piece of art." The report also mentions that the patent could in theory be used to help police limit smartphone filming of acts of brutality, or help a government shut off filming in certain locations. Last week, SlashGear reported that Alicia Keys is the latest musician to ban cellphones at her events.

4 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now the cops can abuse people and you can't film them doing it!

    1. Re:Great! by umghhh · · Score: 5, Informative

      They will not notice it if they have not experienced anything else in their whole conscious life. I see it with my fellow Germans that live in the West and of whom none saw communism in action. They do not even see a point of protecting privacy after all if you did not do anything wrong you do not have to be afraid I was told. I was also asked if there i anything that I wold be afraid, These are the same people who just cannot believe that anybody in local media or politics can lie to them. Hey they are even majority here! People that complain are dangerous as we know. Paranoid people are too to be suspected of wrongdoing. Interesting world - only exceptional cases will doubt and object. They are then easy to handle. The only difference between now and the older times is that there is no hardly a place that is not a hellhole where one can find a refuge.

    2. Re:Great! by macs4all · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It helps authorities disable your camera so you can't record them kicking your arse onto an encrypted device and/or up to the iCloud....

      Maybe. But it is pretty clear that all cell phone (and maybe camera) manufacturers will be forced by the government to license this technology from Apple, and I expect the final version will not work with a separate IR sensor, it will just use the camera lens to capture the "DO NOT FILM" command and act on it. Of course you could cover up the lens, but that defeats the device too. I doubt if you can effectively block the signal that disables the camera and still have enough light to film the cops beating you or your family.

      Hmmm. The IR thingy will be, um, IR. That is to say, outside of the visible light spectrum (or at least very close to the edge of visibility).

      Howabout a little IR filter that blocks the IR and lets visible light through. Many surveillance cams already have such a thing to cut down on daylight "washout" from extraneous IR from sunlight.

      By the way, there was some noise on Slashdot a couple of years ago about a very similar Apple patent. That one never went anywhere, either.

      Sometimes I think Apple patents things they DON'T want to see developed, with absolutely no intention of actually developing the ideas themselves, either.

  2. Five years ago by elistan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For what it's worth, this patent was discussed five years ago on Slashdot. The earliest date for this idea of Apple's appears to be December 2, 2009.