Microsoft Patents Real-Time Audio Censoring Tech for X-Box Live

[Dr Spaceman]

Words used in conversation that would become hampered due to false positives:
Britches
Flags
Ducks
Snigger
Dam
Flagon
etc etc

Yeah, can you imagine in a capture the flag game? "Hey, they dropped the *beep*" "Where's the *beep*?" "Dude, protect the *beep*"

You know, I like my PC, I run Vista, and I really have little to complain about. (Yeah, I really haven't had a bad Vista experience.) However, Microsoft's M.O. for years has been to simply throw money at a solution, instead of stopping and thinking about how to solve it. Approaching problems in this manner never works. Just look at our current economic situation. No one stopped and said, "Is this the right thing to do?" Everyone just barreled forward and hurled money around as fast as they can.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

This is going to work too well, like most all profanity filters.

 

[Altorin]

Words used in conversation that would become hampered due to false positives:
Britches
Flags
Ducks
Snigger
Dam
Flagon
etc etc

I use the word Flagon everyday

WHO SAYS IM LYING!?

IS IT YOU!?

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I guess we'll be replacing "orbitz" with "Xbox LIVE" now.

 

[Limos]

How does it censor it? Does it just mute it out or does it beep. If it beeps wouldn't that just turn Xbox Live into one long dial tone.

*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

 

[AceDiamond]

Yeah, can you imagine in a capture the flag game? "Hey, they dropped the *beep*" "Where's the *beep*?" "Dude, protect the *beep*"

You know, I like my PC, I run Vista, and I really have little to complain about. (Yeah, I really haven't had a bad Vista experience.) However, Microsoft's M.O. for years has been to simply throw money at a solution, instead of stopping and thinking about how to solve it. Approaching problems in this manner never works. Just look at our current economic situation. No one stopped and said, "Is this the right thing to do?" Everyone just barreled forward and hurled money around as fast as they can.

I don't think this is hurling money at a problem, I think there is actual application for such a technology, it may not have been wholly necessary to create for this particular problem, however.

Also Microsoft won't blame democrats Apple if the technology doesn't work right

 

[tcolberg]

An above poster commented that Microsoft should try to address the core issues as to why Live users are so offensive. I have only experienced PC and Xbox voice communications, but they are light years apart in terms of the respectfulness of the communities. I'm stereotyping a bit here, but in general PC gamers are more about using voice comm for teamwork and Xbox gamers for smack-talk which in the wrong hands ends up as a string of offensive words and racial slurs. (Of course, I know there are exceptions, I've experienced them.)

If I may offer my view on this, a lot of this comes down to the way in which the voice comm is marketed and emphasized. One thing I've noticed is that most PC servers have voice setup so that you can only talk to teammates. The control on people talking out is that if a person starts acting out of line, they can be (usually) quickly and easily booted. This is a feature you really don't see on the Xbox, since Microsoft controls the servers.

As someone who plays both 360 and PC games pretty heavily, I disagree with the idea that PC gamers are somehow more civil than those on the 360. I think it all comes down to where the griefer has the easiest access to griefees. I play Company of Heroes and the primary chatrooms are filled with the most horrific, base, and foul language and ideas you can come up with. Even the voice chat spammers in Halo 3 aren't as bad in terms of content as the spammers in CoH text chat.

I think the only thing that stops PC voice chat from being like that of the 360 is that people have to shell out for their own mic and set it up properly. Nearly every 360 comes with a mic and the only setup involved is plugging it into the controller. Also, PC games servers often have admins or voteban systems, making it possible for there to be actual punishment for bad behavior. This happens a lot on TF2 servers I frequent. On the 360, the most that can be done against a voice chat spammer is to mute them or to ding their reputation 0.06 stars.