“Apple is looking into technology that offers users an easier, safer, way to text and walk by making an iPhone’s screen ‘transparent’ during messaging operations through the clever use of live video,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“To enable a ‘transparent texting’ system, Apple proposes that an app’s background be modified to display video images continuously captured by an iPhone’s rear-facing camera, according to a patent application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday,” Campbell reports. “Due to their inherently mobile nature, smartphones are often used while moving. This is fine for voice calls, but could be problematic for operations that demand visual attention like reading or writing text messages. Aside from appearing antisocial, texting could potentially cause bodily harm if a user operates their device while walking.”
“The implementation as described by Apple is quite simple. A device uses its rear-facing camera to continuously capture video and present the images as a background within a text messaging app currently being displayed,” Campbell reports. “The onscreen result would be offer the illusion of a transparent display with floating text.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re unsure of the merits of protecting idiots from themselves.
Look around. Why accelerate The Idiocracy?
Apple would better serve humanity by simply letting natural selection run its course. 😉
Completely agree with MDN
This feature could be applied to other areas besides texting and walking. Don’t be so closed minded.
In the near term it could be great for texters, but it could also prove invaluable to those with poor eyesight and those who require assistive devices.
I’m not one who texts while walking, but if I were, I don’t see how this would help me because when I operate my iPhone while standing, I hold it at about 45 degrees at just below chest height. The camera would only see a bit of the pavement in front of me.
And that would be perfectly fine, since it would help you see obstacles and prevent tripping over them.
There is only so much that the rear-facing camera can do for someone glued to their phone screen.
While we’re at it, let’s remove speed limits, public health and most importantly, property laws —let natural selection take it’s course.
I thought that siri solved this problem.
There are already a bunch of apps for this – email, text, etc.
That’s what I’m saying as I’m reading this.
Natural selection operates in genetic space on large populations over long periods of time. That principle doesn’t apply to individuals who may have already reproduced and die by accident, however stupidly.
If you are texting, your brain is in high school. Grow up!
Tflint: U R A Q T. M I A Q T 2?
xxx, Bot.
Perhaps the same thinking should be applied to cars, get rid of them to protect the idiots that run into others and cause a fair number of fatalities over time. Then again we’d have to give up the ambulance, fire and police vehicles that save lives.
Perhaps the same thinking should be applied to the sharp blades of metal, get rid of them to protect the idiots that slice themselves up. Then again we’d have to give up the plough and go back to gathering food.
Perhaps the same thinking should be applied to vaccines and medicines, to get rid of the idiots who encounter rabid dogs and diseases. Then again we’d have to live with a life expectancy much below the one we enjoy today.
Then again perhaps one should look at the process of natural selection and observe that the creation of tools is part of humanity’s nature. Apples is serving humanity by creating tools, and letting natural selection run its course.
As hannahjs points out above, natural selection really only works pre-procreation. There are a couple of problems with applying natural selection ideals to modern man. First, we have a capacity to learn from our mistakes just as others have a capacity to learn from our mistakes, so wiping the gene pool of the idiot’s unique combination isn’t always necessary for the betterment of the species. Secondly, allowing an idiot to drive while texting may well wipe the gene pool clean of a very smart individual’s unique combination as the passenger or pedestrian that the idiot kills.
I think your first three paragraphs of “Perhaps…” are meant to explore where the line should be set, which is useful discourse. But instead you threw the baby out with the bathwater, which isn’t useful discourse. Where do you actually think the lines should be set; or, since there are lots of lines, what principles should guide the line setting process?
Hey jt016, thanks for your insightful post. You are indeed correct about the point that hannahjs makes about natural selection. There are many more challenges to applying natural selection to modern man especially if one sees “man” as separate from nature. The other thing is the actual idea of what an “idiot” is, and that it has no value in the natural selection process. I do believe that there is a value to having a population of idiots, after all making things that are idiot proof allows more idiots to be born. Many technologies dumb down the human population, things like calculators, spell checkers, the power point program and one of my favorites television.
There are several examples of idiot genes if I may use the term, one being sickle cell anemia. You’d think that the recessive gene for sickle cell anemia would be wiped out of the gene pool but it hasn’t. As it turns out that gene has a value in defense against malaria.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm
So I agree with your point, idiot should not be wiped out. They serve a purpose and as they say “diversity is stability” so idiots do have a value in the survival of the species.
My point (the bathwater with the baby) is that any technology can be used in a variety of ways. A gun can be used to slaughter a whole bunch of people, or to hunt for food. It’s the use that’s valuable.
Same here for the phones. People will text while doing other activities. One approach is to legislate. Another approach is to adjust the technology to minimize risks (like a camera, a proximity detector etc.), and still another to use common sense, leave the idiocy for the politically correct crowd.
The principles are the same ones since the dawn of time. There is a comment about man being made in the image of man. When I think about that comment I think not so much about the “looks” of god but the activity of god, and that is creation. For the non god like folks, well it comes back to mountain climbers for me.
Why climb Mount Everest?
Because it’s there.
At any rate thanks for your post, it was enjoyable food for thought.
I think Road Warriors “perhaps” paragraphs are a little off. For example, the same thinking does not lead to getting rid of cars to protect idiot but instead to get rid of seat belts so we can get rid of idiots. You get rid of cars then how do we get rid of the idiots that don’t know how to drive?
Don’t seat belts enable the idiots to survive. Likewise, doesn’t this patent enable idiots to survive texting while walking?
Hey hoffbegone, thanks for your post.
You are right, my “perhaps” paragraphs are more than a little off. That was the point. I agree with you that the patent enables idiots to survive texting while walking. I support that. Based on MDN’s take it looks like they don’t. That was the point of my original post.
Hope this helps. Love the seat belt idea by the way, it’s spot on.
Ya, so now the idiots in the world will be holding their iPhones at the top of the steering wheel with two hand while texting/driving, then argue with the officer, “but I could see where I was going, there’s an app for that”… Let the natural selection process carry on, but don’t take out the any innocents.
Sounds clever, and even with this technology, idiots will still look only in the direction of their phone while crossing the street, so they are just as likely to get hit by cars from the side.
What does the “fails” mean in the headline? I know MDN has an agenda, but is the agenda confusing people?
Does anyone remember the learning about Eugenics Movement in the 19th and 20th century, and more importantly, why it was a bad idea in hindsight – or has that already been purged from curriculum? Are all those worried about preventing the Idiocracy also concerned about how the Common Core is shaping the minds of the today’s youth?
This won’t stop idiots walking into things, because it’s a fact that when looking at something intently, or concentrating on something, the brain ‘grey’s-out’ everything else, which is why people can walk straight into a street light or telegraph pole that’s right in front of them, and it still won’t stop fuckwits walking straight off the kerb into the path of a car, truck or bus.
I came up behind a girl walking and texting on my bike, rang my bell and started to go past her, and she turned and walked straight in front of me!
Knocked me clean off the bike, she went flying, and her phone hit the Tarmac and smashed into pieces, which gave me some small satisfaction.
Ya all are make’n me LOL. Thanks for the upbeat break in my day!
1. Use Siri
2. Stop walking
3. Sit down
#firstworldproblems
There’s an app for that on the App Store.
I never got it to work.
sounds like a Google project to me.
So the rear camera is going to capture video images of the background? What is this background? Your feet? The floor? Even if holding the phone out, up slightly, even if you capture that drop off of the subway platform or that fountain at the mall, it is only a few steps away that by the time your brain’s cognition kicks in, your face is planted in the dirt or you coming up for air from the water fountain!
These people are already engrossed in their texting conversation. What makes Apple think that having a transparent background of an impending problem is going to be of any concern to someone lost in reading and typing of text messages?
Dumbest idea I’ve heard today!
Agree with others… Natural Selection!
Why just texting?
What if you are walking around commenting on a
-oh, sh!t….fscking lightpole!!!
MDN, it’s laudable to consider the merits of saving idiots from themselves. There’s an old saying that has appeared on billboards from time to time: “Mistakes happen because of lack of experience. Experience is gained by making mistakes.”
Idiots and smart people make mistakes — we all do. If you raise a child in a super-protected environment where s/he is never allowed to make mistakes and learn from them you do a great disservice to that child.
The public policy issue is about allowing the mistake-learn cycle from injuring other people and their property.
Public policy that tries to restrict behavior by identifying that behavior specifically will almost always fail because it becomes unenforceable. Laws that punish someone for murder, for instance, do not attempt to define how the murder is committed, just that it was committed.
Outlawing specific distracting behaviors when operating a motor vehicle on public roadways will fail because the specific behavior can’t be proven. For example, outlawing texting while driving will fail because you can’t prove someone was actually texting at the time of the accident. Furthermore, it doesn’t address the core issue of a judgement call made by the driver to allow him/herself to be distracted. Talking to a passenger can be very distracting. Reaching for a CD to put in the CD player can be distracting. Brushing hair or applying makeup takes concentration away from the primary responsibility of the driver. I saw someone eating soup from a bowl on the passenger seat the other day.
So the answer is not to create law after law targeting specific distracting behaviors. The answer is, I think, two-fold: 1) Raise awareness of the dangers (shown to be effective in many behavioral areas like drinking and smoking), and 2) Punish offenders to the level that reinforces the awareness campaign.
Not too long ago, whenever anyone died in a car crash, it was because the driver was stupid or careless and therefore no one besides drivers can change that. It wasn’t until the 1960’s, when attitudes were changing on many subjects, that people finally stepped up and said, cars can and should be designed to protect people better just in case there is a crash. Then we started getting mandated safety standards, crash tests, improved bumper designs, anti-lock brakes, seat belts, air bags – and automobile fatalities actually decreased dramatically.
Turns out, industrial design focused on human interests can accomplish way more than just calling people stupid and hoping human nature will change.
I agree wholeheartedly that the things mankind makes can be designed to protect us.
My point was that laws that try to legislate behavior never work.
If you were concluding by saying that it is unhelpful to call people stupid, I agree, again, wholeheartedly. Ditto for the wistful (and useless) hoping that human nature will change.
Similar to the dramatic increases in survivability of automobile crashes which followed attitudes changes and all that attends to that, the TV commercials alerting people to the perils of taking drugs into Turkey were a huge success in stopping more tourists from being arrested there and sentenced to deplorable legal proceedings and incarceration practices. More recently there have been quite graphic commercials about texting while driving. Unscientifically, I know that in my children’s friend groups these commercials have worked.
You can’t fix stupid – Ron White comedian.
Animal herds running from a predator will kick the slow, weak, sick ones to the rear of the herd to avoid being eaten by the predator. Natural selection. Back of the herd.
I think that’s partly why we call them animals. I think humans aspire to a more compassionate and complex understanding of the value of human life than animals do.
What is the value to the herd of a single individual? What is the greatest contribution one individual can make to the herd? I think if we strip away a lot of fluff, the single greatest contribution an individual can make — in your analogy — is to sacrifice (willingly or not) himself to satiate the appetite of the predator. For a time. (Okay, I guess producing offspring that can either continue the herd or sacrifice themselves is important too)
Would Stephen Hawkings have been eaten in the wild? Was that the greatest contribution to our society he could make?
How about Stevie Wonder?
How about Franklin D. Roosevelt?
Many US Presidents have suffered from asthma and would probably have been unable to outrun a predator.
I hope you don’t really think that any human who doesn’t meet some litmus test should be allowed to die.
The definition of ‘weak’ will differ with the species and its position in the food chain. Toolmaker species like us transform a weak animal into a dominant predator, or a valuable social resource protected by the herd for its collective benefit.
I think this shows Apple is working on some sort of eyeglass computer interface. Looking at your iPhone while you are walking is silly. Looking through glasses on which computer images are superimposed makes a lot of sense. Even more powerful would be glasses that could project stereoscopic images replicating the environment you are in and integrating computer images.
By expression the idea in an iPhone environment, Apple avoids tipping its hands about its top secret g-glass killer.
Being slowing down while traveling behind someone walking as they clicked tiny buttons with two hands on their device.
I called it Blackberry jam.
*slowed