Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Will Google TV Owe Royalties For Universal Search?

Posted by timothy on from the advancement-of-the-useful-arts-and-sciences dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google TV, TiVo, iTunes and virtually every big consumer electronics maker have promised 'universal search' engines that enable users to quickly find and play movies, music and other content, no matter where it is stored. But Crestron Electronics, a developer of home automation systems, just filed a patent for 'Searching Two or More Media Sources for Media.' In other words, universal search, specifically for both local and cloud-based content."

1 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:prior art by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What Crestron seems to be trying to patent here is some very basic set arithmetic that is fundemental mathematics that predates even the first paper on relational databases.

    This is yet another "invention" that sounds like an undergraduate computer science homework assignment.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.