Several blogs took note of a patent that Microsoft filed a while back for a concept called "digital manners." The idea is that a venue such as a movie theater could broadcast a signal to portable devices such as cell phones to let them know what the expected polite behavior should be while in the area.

I have to say, I like the idea. Everyone has experienced a cell phone ringing at a most inopportune time and place with a loud and obnoxious ring tone. It's even worse when it's your own ring tone, for example because you forgot to set your phone to vibrate or turn it off completely. And that's the point; most people don't intend to annoy others, they just forget or didn't see the sign that told them to turn their cell phones off.

Digital manners automate the process of setting phones to vibrate; they could even turn a cell phone to "airplane mode" when you board a flight. In settings such as a locker room where cell phone cameras wouldn't be appropriate, they could turn off that functionality as well. I can even see some restaurants and theaters taking advantage of the ability to turn off cameras.

In the discussion of this patent, there's too much focus on the "bad guys" who might set their phones to ignore the digital manners signal. Yes, that could certainly happen, but the main intent here is to let people follow the rules without having to hassle with pulling out their devices and resetting them to some other mode. It's about making it easy for the good guys to cooperate, because the bad guys will always find a way to do bad things.

As far as abuse goes, I think there's more potential for abuse along the lines of the TV-Be-Gone; anti-phone vigilantes might carry a digital manners transmitter with them to disable any device around them. Or, police might turn off camera phones during demonstrations to avoid anyone recording their actions. For that reason, I think any sort of digital manners setting should always be something you can override. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is bad manners -- unless there really is a fire.