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IBM Patent: Smart Floors Detect Heart Attacks, Intruders
An anonymous reader writes "An IBM patent issued in March describes multitouch floors that detect who is in the home and what they're doing – perfect for detecting intruders and falls, notes MSNBC. CEPro.com suggests the technology also could be used to replace cameras and sensor arrays typically required for gesture control, and could detect staggering teens and 'unregistered' boyfriends. The floors could have 'tremendous implications for home health technology.'"
Michael Jackson - Billie jean.
Yep, only let registered, pre-approved and guaranteed condom carrying boyfriends into the house. Help prevented that health hazard called pregnancy :)
"But everything they said was surely tattled back to the overness, if only by the dust at their feet."
</shudder>
I'm first on the tin-foil hat party wagon: What's to stop them from tracking my every movement with this? What's to stop an advertiser from tracking my movement to try to sell me softer toilet paper while I poo?
In IBM/Soviet Floor Industry, Smart Floor Stand on YOU! But seriously, this stupid patent actually mentions "detecting your teens throwning a party while you are away, if the floor detects there are more than six people in the house". Is this really a problem that needs a technological solution? And how much does it cost to have 400 sq meters of "smart floor" installed in your house to begin with? 50K or so?
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Great, a floor that tells me I eat too much and need to lose weight. Its kind of like a mother in law but you can't typically stand on top of your mother in law 24/7.
In Soviet Russia, your mother-in-law stand on YOU!
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
("Buildering"? Drunk Buildering? Could be big!)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How long before we see the first advertisement for special shoes to shield us from smart floors?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Can someone who knows anything about patents please explain to me how this patent can be granted? Where is the invention? We already have floors and we already have multitouch. Have they patented some new multitouch technology that can cover huge spaces? If so, I can't find that explained in the patent text.
I find a lot of references to north and south bridges, DMI, LPC and PCI buses, etc. Complete and utter rubbish. The US patent system is laughable. Yet another reason not to give a shit about anything IP (copyright, patents, etc) related. I'll download, pirate, resell whatever I want until the system is fixed. Thank you very much.
Really smart floor would detect, hurt and attack intruders.
So this floor is going to detect a person of unexpected weight in my house and set off an alarm. Sounds like I'd better not carry any bags, then.
Maybe if I come home on crutches, it'll think the cat's put on weight.
There have been floor based pressure sensor for more than a decade that do these things and they're not from IBM. The earliest uses I am aware of were for security and access control purposes (to detect when someone walked in behind someone else that had an access card.
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This should lead to some very interesting Batman-like robberies.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
More like our privacy..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Probably doesn't need these sensors under it detecting unusual activity
intelligent enough to txt me at work, if only to say, "your cat has oncemore lost traction on the waxed hallway floor, and smashed head on into the book case as usual with predictably hillarious results."
Good people go to bed earlier.
And who produced them?
Who are they kidding? This is just another technology that would be used to monitor and spy on people in their homes.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We dont have floor!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
'tremendous implications for home health technology.'"
Huh, 'home health' must mean no-knock search/arrest warrant.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
This IS IBM after all, building a smarter world, smarter than the slaves who keep it running at any rate.
"Excuse me sir or madam, have you fallen and can't get up?"
By Edgar Allan Poe.
Have gnu, will travel.
While there could be interesting applications of this, covering your floor with touch sensors is far too expensive to be practical.
when you spill your drink all over it? In my experience, fancy-dancy electronics and liquids don't mi RCODE: 1001-02 Client disconnected from the connection.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
Here are a few heavy items I sometimes carry and or wear;
20 pound biker jacket
40 pound chainmaille shirt
20 pound chainmaille kilt
backpack
boxes full of chainmaille
heavy suicases.
By wearing/carrying the above items in different combination my weight can vary by a hundred pounds.
How is this better than a dog? My dog 1) is 100% effective at detecting intruders; and 2) if I were to fall, he would come and lick me in the face.
But...how would it detect Dance Dance Revolution? My guess would be as an intruder having a heart attack.
For example Elsi ElderlyCare (http://www.elsitechnologies.com/en.php?k=16419) is a product tested in Finnish nursing homes, that detects falling patients.
"You know RivenAleem, you could afford to lose a few pounds"
The real lucrative market is of course home-confinement monitoring - a refinement of the ankle bracelet.
IBM still does cool things, but just like certain Holerith cards, they don't seem too troubled about how the tech is used after the sale.
being Floored...
"Let's go find some Turian and beat the shit out of him
If I ever bought a home with this installed the cables would all, miraculously, be gnawed through by rodents. Same as how if I ever bought a car with OnSTAR, the GPS/Mobile cables would be mysteriously severed.