Microsoft Patents "Fonts With Feelings" 150
theodp writes "Seems like those old IBM flaming logo commercials (video) should count as prior art, but the USPTO granted Microsoft a patent Tuesday for inventing Fonts With Feelings. Giving font characters sound, motion, and altered appearance, Microsoft asserts, gives a user 'the impression the fonts have personalities,' thereby enhancing the user's understanding and/or fluency of words. From the patent: 'As a few non-limiting examples, the word 'giant' can get very large; the word 'lion' can morph into a line drawing of a lion; the word 'toss' can morph into a hand that animates a ball toss; the word 'bees' could show bees flying around with or without a 'buzz' sound effect'. If you're curious, Microsoft Research offers some explanations and examples of 'fontlings' in action — don't miss 'f' kicks 'a'!"
The words of the day are... (Score:1, Insightful)
Prior Art. Noone watches seasame street with their kids? They do that stuff all the time.
Re:40 years of Prior Art (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds stupid, looks worse (Score:4, Insightful)
The very first thing I thought of when I read the summary was those annoying cursors, graphical emotes, and the ton of Smiley Central-like websites that did the rounds a few years ago.
If Microsoft having a patent on this idea stops us having to put up with:
lol!! i just got an email with all the letters dancing and singing, and doing a poo on each other!! lol!! i'm going to forward on to everyone i know who won't give a fuck!!1 hahahaha!! lol!!!!
then they can keep it. It'll likely be about as successful and world changing as the Zune was [youtube.com], anyway.
I'm actually OK with granting MS this patent (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm actually OK with granting MS this patent, because this is a terrible idea. These "animated fonts" are going to be worse than Comic Sans. Most people have difficulty reading text moving in any way besides scrolling, and even that can cause problems.
If MS gets essentially a monopoly on this, then once they realize how retarded it is, nobody will be using them.