LOTS of people have been doing this for a while.
The issue isn't who's idea it was, or who tried it (hell, my company even tried it in the late 80's). The issue is who makes it WORK! And "work" in this case is - adapt to all of the nuances of the human voice, and become "pleasing" to "most" people.
The words in quotes are so subjective it leaves room for the multitudes of approaches, such as IBM's, to claim they're "A-Number-One!"
Da Vinci "invented" the helicopter, but it took hundreds of years (and Sikorski), to make it "work".
I'm working out something that I call "Approved Sender Protocol" (ASP). In short, it would require anyone that wants to send you an email to ask you, via a strictly-defined header, if it's ok to do so. You answer with one of the following : Yes, this time only; Yes, always; No, not this time; or No, never.
Since the protocol does not include a subject line, (only the originator/reply email address), there is nothing to spam with. No subject line, no message body. Just a request for a yes/no answer.
The reply (the yes/no answer) will be sent to the ORIGINATOR email address (hence, originator can't be fake), and will be encoded with the public key for that user's email server. The email server, itself, must unencrypt the response; again, validating the originator (no other email server can decrypt it). The person receiving the reply must then include the authorization number (if approved) provided in the body of the reply to get their email message through the ASP-enabled server.
If a message arrives at your email server without having gone through the entire process, it's put in a spam pile. You have the choice to use the ASP or non-ASP gateway on your email server at your leisure. But if you chose the ASP-enabled one, no one but those you allow can get an entire email to your (electronic) front door.
There's a little more to this protocol, but I've left it out for brevity. I think it'll do the trick, as much of the spam comes from unknown sources, and most of us know who our "Approved Senders" are. Besides, you can always look at both sides of the ASP email server... if you feel un-spammed...
Can you imagine how much it's going to cost Joe's Discount Grocery Store to replace all of these gadgets as the Cripts & Bloods carve their gang symbols across the faces of the displays? Not to mention that your local bum/bag lady won't give a second thought to the neat-o LCD screen as he or she presses the cart into service as an aluminum recycling plant on wheels, or "mobile warehouse of smells".
Rather than spend $$ on mobile computers that get kids in trouble, and cause grown ups to bash into eachother's achillies heels, I suggest that the cart manufacturers equip them with a GPS and a cell phone. That way, once the vagabonds abscond with the pricey carts (around $1,000 each!), the police can lojack their asses!
Everyone seems to enjoy slinging mud at the PTO for its loosey-goosey granting of patents. But like you suggest, no one knows everything, and the PTO office has people at the wheel (asleep or otherwise).
Perhaps we could subject patent applications to peer-review in much the same way as the scientific community deals with research results prior to their publication (the recent scandals in said review process notwithstanding). As a safeguard, we would make the reviewers sign an NDA to prevent them from taking the ideas and running with them.
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LOTS of people have been doing this for a while. The issue isn't who's idea it was, or who tried it (hell, my company even tried it in the late 80's). The issue is who makes it WORK! And "work" in this case is - adapt to all of the nuances of the human voice, and become "pleasing" to "most" people. The words in quotes are so subjective it leaves room for the multitudes of approaches, such as IBM's, to claim they're "A-Number-One!" Da Vinci "invented" the helicopter, but it took hundreds of years (and Sikorski), to make it "work".
I'm working out something that I call "Approved Sender Protocol" (ASP). In short, it would require anyone that wants to send you an email to ask you, via a strictly-defined header, if it's ok to do so. You answer with one of the following : Yes, this time only; Yes, always; No, not this time; or No, never.
Since the protocol does not include a subject line, (only the originator/reply email address), there is nothing to spam with. No subject line, no message body. Just a request for a yes/no answer.
The reply (the yes/no answer) will be sent to the ORIGINATOR email address (hence, originator can't be fake), and will be encoded with the public key for that user's email server. The email server, itself, must unencrypt the response; again, validating the originator (no other email server can decrypt it). The person receiving the reply must then include the authorization number (if approved) provided in the body of the reply to get their email message through the ASP-enabled server.
If a message arrives at your email server without having gone through the entire process, it's put in a spam pile. You have the choice to use the ASP or non-ASP gateway on your email server at your leisure. But if you chose the ASP-enabled one, no one but those you allow can get an entire email to your (electronic) front door.
There's a little more to this protocol, but I've left it out for brevity. I think it'll do the trick, as much of the spam comes from unknown sources, and most of us know who our "Approved Senders" are. Besides, you can always look at both sides of the ASP email server... if you feel un-spammed...
Can you imagine how much it's going to cost Joe's Discount Grocery Store to replace all of these gadgets as the Cripts & Bloods carve their gang symbols across the faces of the displays? Not to mention that your local bum/bag lady won't give a second thought to the neat-o LCD screen as he or she presses the cart into service as an aluminum recycling plant on wheels, or "mobile warehouse of smells".
Rather than spend $$ on mobile computers that get kids in trouble, and cause grown ups to bash into eachother's achillies heels, I suggest that the cart manufacturers equip them with a GPS and a cell phone. That way, once the vagabonds abscond with the pricey carts (around $1,000 each!), the police can lojack their asses!
Everyone seems to enjoy slinging mud at the PTO for its loosey-goosey granting of patents. But like you suggest, no one knows everything, and the PTO office has people at the wheel (asleep or otherwise).
Perhaps we could subject patent applications to peer-review in much the same way as the scientific community deals with research results prior to their publication (the recent scandals in said review process notwithstanding). As a safeguard, we would make the reviewers sign an NDA to prevent them from taking the ideas and running with them.