Follow Us
RSS Feed
Follow on Twitter
Facebook
Watch on YouTubeMicrosoft Silences Critics At Last?
This post was published 1 year 5 months 21 days ago.It\'s is possible that the information within this article is now out of date or updated.
The super-geniuses at Microsoft have come up with a new way to deal with a very very troublesome problem associated with mobile devices: namely how to shut them up. We have all had to deal with phones ringing in the theater, shutterbugs snapping away in museums where photos are not allowed, annoying strangers fighting on the phone while you try to sleep next door and all manners of impositions caused by a lack of phone etiquette.
Apparently, Microsoft has decided the ubiquitous requests to turn off cellphones or refrain from photography just ain’t cutting it and have proposed a patent on a system called DMP or Device Manners Policy.
The system would have a server at a location, say a concert hall, connect to any DMP enabled mobile device in the area and using DMP, disable certain functions, such as phones taking calls or cameras taking pictures. Other functions, such as checking your address book or calling 911 would not be blocked.
On the surface this seems like a elegant, simple solution to a thorny social problem. However, the ways this could be abused are legion, and there is no guarantee all device makers or even all device users would go along with it. How do you really enforce good manners?
What do you think…will you let Big Brother block your phone calls in exchange for quiet in a movie? How will this figure in the ongoing debate about the security threat in taking pictures of public areas? Many ways to look at this seemingly simple issue.
To check out the patent request, look HERE.
Zealot (473 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook
By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).
You can also participate in other conversation in our active forums with 200,000 other Members. It only takes 2 minutes to sign up one time for free in the forums.
