Saturday, October 16, 2010

Apple awarded patent for text message content control program

TechCrunch reported this week that Apple has patented a computer program that allows users to censor certain words from incoming and outgoing text messages.

The TechCrunch story focuses on the parental control (anti-"sexting") potential of the patent, which I'm sure will be a big seller for parents who are on the fence about allowing their teenage children to have iPhones.  Another potential use involves allowing only messages with a specified amount of content in a certain language, suggesting the possibility of forced language practice through text message restrictions.

I can also see the potential for spam filtering.  If text messages become the next frontier for unsolicited advertisements, perhaps one could filter out some key words.

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