Microsoft Profanity Patent

Last week Microsoft filed for a real time profanity patent. The patent outlines a method of bleeping or silencing profane words and is done without any human intervention or need for a delay which many current systems use. While some people will cry out against the Orwellian ramifications of such a filter I can only surmise that Microsoft wants to add this to their Xbox Live offering as an option not as an always on filter to promote family friendly gaming on Live. This would be great for filtering out the racists and homophobes who feel it is their duty to assail my eardrums with their profane babble. As some people have also commented a filter which allows for differing levels of filtering based on whether a person is your “friend” or a random Live stranger would be a great addition to the filter and make this an amazing feature for Live. The point being that I love to trash talk with my friends and it is in good fun, well almost always in fun, but I hate hearing the latest learned slew of words from 12 year old children.

Make sure you check out the Frequency of Profanity in Microsoft’s Halo 2 for the Xbox study I finished earlier this year.

Read more about Microsoft’s profanity filter at Arstechnica