The family-friendly DVD player

Kmart and Wal-Mart are going to start selling a DVD player from Thomson that can automatically filter out family-unfriendly content like swear words, nudity, and graphic violence. The player uses technology from a company called ClearPlay (based in Utah, no less), but it only works with movies where they've already gone through and decided what's offensive and what's not (we're assuming there must be some way for the player to periodically upload data about what to filter in new films). Hollywood, of course, doesn't like this, (the Directors Guild of America is already embroiled in a lawsuit against ClearPlay) but they don't really have much control over what people can do with their DVDs after they buy them. ClearPlay isn't actually distributing or selling copies of the movies they're filtering, just letting people alter them in the privacy of their homes. Yeah, we think it's reactionary, but it's definitely not illegal.

[Via Designtechnica]