censor
You are browsing the censor tag archive.
Google’s Nexus One censors your voice-to-text input, we #### you not
It’d be kinda funny if someone was live-bleeping your profanity, right? Sure, but five minutes later you’ll sober up to regret and lingering annoyance. Turns out the Nexus One does it for real, courtesy of Google’s speech-to-text engine — it replaces the notorious four-letter F and S words with a ‘####,’ which is a more dramatic take on the Zune HD’s now-obsolete Twitter censorship. As silly as this sounds, Google has a good reason for this:
We filter potentially offensive or inappropriate results because we want to avoid situations whereby we might misrecognize a spoken query and return profanity when, in fact, the user said something completely innocent.
Kudos for this consideration, but it wouldn’t hurt to have an on / off option — after all, it’s not like we’re asking for pinch-to-zoom here, and we’ll promise to use a swear jar.
Google’s Nexus One censors your voice-to-text input, we #### you not originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
Digg | 
CNET | Email this | Comments
IE security flaw exploited in recent Google attacks
IE security flaw exploited in recent Google attacks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink BBC | Microsoft | Email this | Comments
Google to stop censoring Chinese search results, will “review the feasibility” of Chinese business operations
Google’s been taking bad press about Chinese search result filtering for years, and now it looks like the company simply fed up: it’s going to stop filtering Google.cn and it may pull of out the country entirely. The move comes on the heels of coordinated attacks on Gmail, which Google says were aimed at accessing the accounts of prominent human rights activists — and Google also says that it’s not the only company suffering such attacks in China. Only two accounts are said to have been hacked, but many more have apparently been accessed by third parties using malware or phishing schemes to obtain passwords. Google also says that these attacks have forced it to reconsider “the feasibility of our business operations in China,” and that it’s going to take the next few weeks to talk to the Chinese government and figure out a way to operate an unfiltered search engine in a legal way, and if it can’t be done, it’ll close Google.cn and potentially leave China completely. A gutsy move, to be sure — but seriously, Google, what took you so long?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Google to stop censoring Chinese search results, will “review the feasibility” of Chinese business operations originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink BBC | Official Google Blog | Email this | Comments
China backtracks, makes Green Dam ‘optional’
China’s efforts to preload the Green Dam censorware on all PCs in the country have been going pretty poorly so far, with accusations of software piracy and manufacturer displeasure causing delays. Now the government is backing down from that stance, stating that the original regulation wasn’t “expressed clearly, and gave everyone the impression that [Green Dam] was mandatory.” For home computers, that means the internet filtering software will likely continue to be bundled as an optional (and inactive) extra — something Acer, ASUS, Lenovo and Sony have been doing since early July — but if you’re at school, an internet cafe or some other public access point, expect to see Green Dam running, alive and well. Censorship is dead, long live censorship.
[Via CNET]
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
China backtracks, makes Green Dam ‘optional’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
China delays plan for mandatory “Green Dam” internet filter
There’s not exactly much more details than the headline on this one, but China’s official Xinhua news agency is reporting that the country is delaying its plans that would require that the so-called “Green Dam Youth Escort” internet filtering software be installed on all PCs sold in China. That requirement was set to go into effect on Wednesday but, as we have seen, it’s caused no shortage of controversy during the lead up — both because of the general nature of the software, and because of some piracy and security issues that could leave PCs with the software vulnerable to an attack. No word on a new date just yet, but it seems unlikely that the delay will be an indefinite one.
[Thanks, James]
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
China delays plan for mandatory “Green Dam” internet filter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Sony now including “Green Dam” filtering software on PCs sold in China
[Via TG Daily]
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Sony now including “Green Dam” filtering software on PCs sold in China originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Recent Comments