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Microsoft Patents The Body Bus
Mz6 writes "Microsoft has been awarded a patent for using
human skin as a power conduit and data bus. Patent No.
6,754,472, which was published Tuesday, describes a method for transmitting power and data to devices worn on the body and for communication of data between those devices. In its filing, Microsoft cites the proliferation of wearable electronic devices, such as wristwatches, pagers, PDAs (worn on people's belts) and small displays that can now be mounted on headgear. "As a result of carrying multiple portable electronic devices, there is often a significant amount of redundancy in terms of input/output devices included in the portable devices used by a single person," says the filing. "For example, a watch, pager, PDA and radio may all include a speaker." To reduce the redundancy of input/output devices, Microsoft's patent proposes a personal area network that allows a single data input or output device to be used by multiple portable devices." (What about DoCoMo's research in this area?)
This is a physical device and if there is no prior art then I think this is a very valid patent.
My gut feeling is:
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
So I guess this might ultimately allow the transfer of data literally through a handshake ...
would anyone have any objections to this patent? This patent covers a physical device made of atoms just like 100% of all patents applied for 100 years ago. I do nto agree with sofwtare patents but I do with patents covering physical devices.
has violated this patent. Plus the old experiment in school, where the whole class holds hands in a string, and the person on each end each touches one lobe of a Van Der Graff generator. Everyone's hair rises, and whoever breaks the circuit gets the shock - but there was a circuit and power was being delivered, it was even doing work.
Here's the problem:
Patents are being awarded for spending a little time thinking. For having the luxury of free time to think, and company lawyers to file, companies are able to establish themselves as a gatekeeper.
Patents should be the product of effort - they were meant to reward that effort, and incent you to expend that amount of effort again in the future.
IMHO, these 'few hours of thought' patents are diametrically opposed to the concept of patents as enumerated in the Constitution.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Borg coments aside, I'd love to see this work. Turning the human skin into a data path has wonderful medical applications. Imagine being able to monitor pacemakers, hearing aids, and other prosthetic devices non-invasively.
Furthermore, this could open up the prospect of "implants" to help humans with different things. If Microsoft can really get data and power running through the human body, it could really usher in a new age of computing.
I'm just worried about the potential security vulnerabilities. I mean, imagine someone running down the street, flailing their arms wildly, screaming "My underwear's been infected by a virus! I can't take it off!"
perhaps someone could implant something right up his pipes, the horrible little self-agrandising worm.
It's a new idea. While it has been known for a long time that the body conducts electricity, sending data through the body has not been acheived before. There has to be a good reason for this.
Presumably Microsoft has solved some specific engineering problems. They also probably spent a lot of money on solving them.
Why shouldn't they be entitled to financial reward?
They aren't patenting PANs, they are patenting a particular method of implementing a PAN. Nice try at MS bashing though.
Sorry to nitpick on something so minor. The rest of the points in your comment are completely valid.
Horse shit.
There is no proof that RF causes cancer. Heard of an class action suits against cell phone manufacturers? No. You haven't.
Why?
Because this is horse shit.
Those little healing magnets you wear to align your shakras/amplify your aura/whatever-BS-they-foisted-off-on-you? Horse Shit.
Yes. You heard it here first.
As penence, you must watch no less than 5 episodes of Myth Busters. (not really punishment, but at least you'll be less likely to fall for this stuff in the future)
Fooz Meister
No, the future is much better than that! Imagine yourself covered in speakers or organic LEDs. They will use your skin to make you into a big billboard. Skin power transference also shows great promise in EULA and copyright enforcement. DMCA mark V will require placement of electrodes on all external genitalia at birth and terrorism, masturbation, pre and post marital sex and other evils will cease to exist.
Somehow, I'm not impressed. Everyone knows the conductive properties of skin and electro-cardiogram makers have researching human skin electrodes and signaling for decades.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Various forms of hearing aids have used this idea for several years. For people with hearing in one ear, you can 'transmit' the sound from the deaf ear to the working ear.
--bryan
The facts will ultimately show that [insert deity of your choice] has prior art on this patent - It's called the nervous system!
Sig? - yeah, whatever.
and anyone using an electric chair
> I suggest you actually READ the patent. they are trying to patent data transfer (PAN) and power transfer.
Their technique is different from other/previous inventions because the powered device can transmit and use power/data without actually having its own power source. Therefore they're not trying to patent PAN.
Quote: Because the devices of the present invention are networked, they can be recharged and powered by other devices on the network.
IBM's and others' PAN devices all have their own power source (at least News.com reported that IBM's device had the size of stack of cards).
I'm really not sure this is a very good idea.
The body is a very complex beast, and has evolved to work in ways we simply don't understand yet. Adding our own signals to the body's natural electromagnetic field may be completely harmless, but it could also have strange, unpleasant side effects over time.
Personally, I don't plan to carry any such device until they've been on the market, and in fairly wide uptake, for at least 10 years. I'm generally an early adopter of almost anything, but this technology worries me a little.
Every stuck you finger in tha back of a T.V. arial socket to get a better reception. That's multiple modulated frequencies. If my video pickes up some information from that signal to start recording then I've selectivly activated a device.
In the audable range, I've used myself as a very noisy conductor for hi-fi equipment before, maybe I had a pizeo attached.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
IMAO becouse IANAL some of this may not apply.
Skin networking research at MIT
The diffrence between MITs prior art and Microsofts patent is the power distrabution.
But.. DU.. the data is electrical... power distrabution is an implied part of that.
Any time you have a reliable electrical signal you have a power source.
Basicly Microsofts patent is a minnor and obveous modification of an existing patent and as I understand it patenting the obveous is not permitted.
I don't actually exist.
Hey, I heard of BAN (Body Area Networks) years ago! The US patent office seems to be lame retards that doesn't check whether someone has done this before. I can't recollect who did the experiments but read an article about 5 years ago of a computer worn in the shoes drawing power from movement (and maybe foul air =) ). When people shaking hands their computers swapped electronic businesscards. So after a day of shaking hands on meetings, fairs etc you could get a list of whom they were and everything.
How the heck can you get a patent on something that is already out there?
Why don't we file a patent for "sending information through variations in airpressure" (also knows as talking)?