Enter the latest version of Eudora's email software, introduced this week. Eudora 5.0 incorporates a new feature called "MoodWatch", which ranked emails according to the "heat" of the language used with one, two or three chilli peppers. Users are warned, when the "send" button is hit, that the message may be cause offence, giving the sender a chance to reconsider.
MoodWatch is a tool that is designed to encourage email users to use the communications medium more carefully. Eudora has recognized that the almost instantaneous exchange of written messages via the internet can have drawbacks. Perhaps because emails can be written and sent in a matter of moments, or because many users forgo the traditional forms of address used in letters, abrupt and even abusive emails are not uncommon
The Eudora technology, which is based on a fast algorithm that identifies words or phrases that may cause offence, does not prevent the user from blasting people with outrageous messages. However, the software imposes a cooling-off period for angry emailers.
The system is not fool proof. Eudora predicts that some users will have fun concocting "three chilli" messages, or writing insults that the algorithms do not detect. Even so, the desired effect of enabling users to think twice before they click on "send" will have been achieved. And we all have some email correspondents to whom we would be pleased to send a copy.
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Carl
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