Microsoft Patents ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Feature For GPS Devices

[roo_ster]

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/01/06/microsoft-patents-avoid-ghetto-feature-for-gps-devices/

Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.

A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”

Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route.

Because the weather helps determine "ghetto" status.

[Fly320s]

About time someone did this. I thought about it 2 years ago.  Now if all the mobile phone makers would incorporate it into the phones.

[freakazoid]

[Perd Hapley]

So is the press calling it "Avoid the Ghetto" just for the sensationalism, or did Microsoft actually call it that? If so, did they just do it for the free publicity?

[GigaBuist]

Because the weather helps determine "ghetto" status.

It does, to some extent, actually.

I used to work in a really high crime area.  The local PD started setting up a mobile home as a substation on an empty lot during summers because the crime rate would skyrocket when the weather got warm.

In the second year that they put it up somebody threw a Moltov cocktail into window the very first night it was dropped off.

I'll be interested to see if blogger Joe Huffman weighs in on this one.  He used to work for Microsoft but recently quit.  His last position there was lead architect on the Windows 7 Phone Location/GPS team.  He's also a gun guy.  Runs the "Boomershoot" thing out in Idaho every year.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Coulld have used that on my roadtrip with katie.

Some places in Baltimore are NOT where you get gas late at night. 

Of course, we had two giant dogs in the car that would eat someone if we where threatened, but we don't want the dogs to get a booboo.

[freakazoid]

So is the press calling it "Avoid the Ghetto" just for the sensationalism, or did Microsoft actually call it that? If so, did they just do it for the free publicity?

Seems to me that it is simple journalist sensationalism.

I imagine the weather data would be for long trips across the country.

[Tallpine]

Because the weather helps determine "ghetto" status.

You need to know weather to go there or not 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i know back when i was a disciple to better living through modern chemistry if i was on the road and ran low on party supplies i could ask a cab driver to take me to mlk blvd/ave and be good to go.

[zxcvbob]

♫ "and his mama cried..." ♪

(now you've all got that stupid song stuck in your heads  )

[lee n. field]

I The local PD started setting up a mobile home as a substation on an empty lot

In the second year that they put it up somebody threw a Moltov cocktail into window the very first night it was dropped off.

For some reason that made me laugh.

[Angel Eyes]

Of course, we had two giant dogs in the car that would eat someone if we where threatened, but we don't want the dogs to get a booboo food poisoning.

FIFY

[Perd Hapley]

Coulld have used that on my roadtrip with katie.

Some places in Baltimore are NOT where you get gas late at night. 

Of course, we had two giant dogs in the car that would eat someone if we where threatened, but we don't want the dogs to get a booboo.

Oh, so you'd be using the app to find dog food. Got it. 

[BlueStarLizzard]

Oh, so you'd be using the app to find dog food. Got it. 

They have sensitive tummies. Hopped up gangbanger would definatly give them indegestion.

[MrsSmith]

Ghetto feature would have been handy my first week or two at work here, not knowing the area. My boss (at the time) sent me into the hood on three separate occasions. When I suggested that he should not send me into those areas, especially after dark, anymore, he laughed like I'd made a joke. That feature on my phone to identify bad or questionable neighborhoods would have certainly been useful.

[Gowen]

Because the weather helps determine "ghetto" status.

You never know when it will be raining bullets.

[Tallpine]

You never know when it will be raining bullets.

Or all hail will break loose.

[Boomhauer]

roo_ster, please read what you posted in your initial quote in regards to your weather and the ghetto comment.



Avoid Ghetto is still hilarious. Waiting for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to scream in protest, launch a completely meaningless boycott, and demand shakedown money...

[S. Williamson]

roo_ster, please read what you posted in your initial quote in regards to your weather and the ghetto comment.



Avoid Ghetto is still hilarious. Waiting for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to scream in protest, launch a completely meaningless boycott, and demand shakedown money...

If either one of them make a peep about this, it only solidifies their own racism against the Black Community^TM.   

[Boomhauer]

If either one of them make a peep about this, it only solidifies their own racism against the Black Community^TM.   

We know that, but the black community doesn't see it quite that way...

[brimic]

Because the weather helps determine "ghetto" status.

In the northern climes, the bad elements stay indoors when the temperatures drop. Driving through the ghetto is much safter under certain conditions such as bright sunshine and -13F temperatures than say 85 degrees and 6 hours after sundown.

[RevDisk]

Saw it on Slashdot.  And yes, a large number of folks are decrying it as racist.

I'd love that feature.

[Harold Tuttle]

a buddy used to bike from Silver Spring to 16th and M street every day

then one afternoon he read a washington post article on the drug market he road past
and he started taking a different route


http://spotcrime.com/dc/washington

[BlueStarLizzard]

Saw it on Slashdot.  And yes, a large number of folks are decrying it as racist.

I'd love that feature.

The simple solution would be make it equal oppertunity.

I.E. there are places in the boondocks where breaking down in the middle of the night might also be detrimental. Usually, rednecks and hillbillies are very nice to strangers and are eager to help. But they can be easily offended by a city slicker and some of them, well, you don't want to offend them.

I find the... Err..  Appalachtion peoples to be considerably more potentially dangourous then ghetto rats.

[gunsmith]

you don't need a weathermen to know which way the wind blows