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Bezos Patenting 'Dumb' Tablets, Glasses, Windshields
theodp writes "GeekWire reports on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' pending patent on remote displays that communicate with base stations and operate on wireless power. Reducing devices to mere screens with minimal storage that receive pre-rendered content (e.g., bitmap images), the patent application explains, eliminates the need for bulky batteries or processors, and employing techniques like electromagnetic or electrostatic induction allows one to cut the cord completely. Such remote displays, Amazon suggests, could find a home on college campuses (tablets), in your car (windshield displays or DVD players), and even on your face (eyeglasses)."
There's already a (not wirelessly powered) device similar to the one described in the patent.
$SUBJECT says it all.
I'm thoroughly impressed.
Even though he's a CEO, working 24/7 on that job, he still has time to invent all these things and patent them?
Incredible!
Hmm... Like the Wii U tablet?
I'm not impressed, I sure hope the patent people don't fall for this one.
Dumb tablets for dumb people.
This is Bezo's second patent application this month..
Maybe he got a hold of this book?
Don't we call a 'dumb tablet' a "monitor"? Y'know, those crazy devices that have(ever since the earliest digital displays, even if you don't want to count the analog ones), explicitly depended on a more capable device to directly fill a tiny amount of storage(corresponding to one frame worth, sometimes less if there is a clever timing sync involved) with the necessary data?
Christ, Bezos, just swapping a wire for a wireless link doesn't make it novel...
It's more common at large tech companies to claim that one of your engineers invented something after careful study in the lab etc etc. Then you have them file a patent, but with assignment to the company. You don't typically put the CEO's name on the patent, because it's not so plausible that random things the CEO sketches out are properly patentable inventions that have had real technical work go into them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I didn't found anything apart from wishes and wants and should do...
Basically, ideas not patents...
So I guess we'll be seeing it soon! Oh wait, you can patent broad ideas in which you have no idea how they'll work, preventing others from actually inventing the idea? That's not so great for innovation.
First time I read the title it said Bozos, which made perfect sense.
Well, for the moment, I'm still using AWS EC2, but I've started buying books [and everything else] from other suppliers, because of this. A real shame, I feel that Amazon is a genuine success rather than dotcom froth, but big things seem to become evil by some hidden law of scale.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I designed this about 5 years ago, almost to the same design described here. How does one go about bringing it to bezos attention?
So it's more like a TV set or a VGA display?
About time someone patented that. I mean: so much intellectual property going to waste. What a pity!
I've been using an old, broken (touchscreen no longer working) no-name brand 7" Android tablet as a third screen for months now. It displays the Chrome developer console window.
I'm using RedFly, but there are atleast 3 similar apps for Android and 2 for iOS devices and this kind of functionality has been around for much longer than I've been using it.
How come Amazon keeps getting away with getting patents on completely obvious and common technology?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Remarkable inspiration. Such originality! I'm glad we have a patent system to protect such ingenuity.
I thought a Windows tablet would be classified as a "dumb" tablet.
Actually they simply invented a TV. Pre-rendered images that are displayed, received over a wireless connection.
I've been using an old, broken (touchscreen no longer working) no-name brand 7" Android tablet as a third screen for months now. It displays the Chrome developer console window.
I'm using RedFly, but there are atleast 3 similar apps for Android and 2 for iOS devices and this kind of functionality has been around for much longer than I've been using it.
How come Amazon keeps getting away with getting patents on completely obvious and common technology?
If you're using an app on a, more capable, tablet then you aren't doing what this patent describes. You paid full price for the tablet, with the touchscreen, and battery, and decent processor etc. This is for a much lower cost device that won't be able to do anything but act as a display.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
So we've moved from repatenting everything and adding "on a computer" to "on a mobile device" and now to "wirelessly powered."
9. A remote display system, comprising:
a first primary station including a data transmitting element operable to wirelessly transmit data and a power transmitting element operable to wirelessly transmit power;
a second primary station including a data transmitting element operable to wirelessly transmit data and a power transmitting element operable to wirelessly transmit power; and
a portable display including a power receiving element and a data receiving element;
wherein the portable display is operable to wirelessly receive the power from the power transmitting element of the first primary station in response to a detection that the portable display is within power transmitting range of the first primary station; and
wherein the portable display is operable to wirelessly receive the power from the power transmitting element of the second primary station in response to a detection that the portable display is within power transmitting range of the second primary station.
Not that these claims are patentable as is, but it seems to be more about smooth handoff between the first base station and second base station.
There's also a second invention mentioned in the application that's only slightly related (which is not unusual, it'll probably be in a divisional application sometime). It relates to automatic cable tensioning:
For example, when a user holding a portable display connected to a primary station pulls the portable display away from the primary station, the tension sensor 1004 in the cable management system 1002 detects an increased tension on the transmission cable. When the tension level exceeds an upper threshold tension level, the cable management system 1002 activates the cable release 1008 to allow an additional amount of transmission cable 908 to extend out of the primary station 912 until at least the tension level in the cable drops below the high threshold tension level. By activating the cable release 1008, the portable display does not tug on the transmission cable and possibly disconnect the transmission cable from the portable display.
Since when is cost a factor in the validity of a patent? Does it do the same tasks?
We've had dumb-terminals for decades, so nothing at all new on that front.
To me, moving from wired networking to wireless networking is pretty obvious since we've been moving in that direction pretty steadily. The specifics of the networking is irrelevant I'd think.
Other than the wireless power, which I'm never clear actually exists ... this is taking several existing things, and putting them together in what seems more like an evolution than an invention. At which point it becomes the usual "system and methodology for combining several well understood technologies in a fairly obvious way".
What I'd really like to know is what claim 1 was in the patent which is now cancelled. I'm sure it was something ridiculous they couldn't support.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You know, it plugged into a computers screen port and was a portable dumb screen receiving video content and sending back raw mouse coords, exactly as 'invented' by Bezo, it didn't sell. I wish I could remember what it was called.
Then Microsoft copied it but added extra smarts and tried to milk another windows license. So that the user could drive the main screen and portable screen separately, and that failed too.
And now Bezos has a patent on such a device... whose only uniqueness is that its wirelessly powered. And the patent office has granted it?
Bezos and his 1 click non inventions.
If you live in the USA, the award goes to the guy who got to the patent office first, not the first guy who invented it. Sorry dude, look for the lawsuit in your mailbox soon. The way the laws are written now, if you're rich enough, you can patent the wheel.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
read more carefully...powered wirelessly. I bet you display has a cord plugged into the wall. If you've got a piece of plastic that is displaying a wireless image and has no batteries and no cord plugged into it, I want to see it!! This is amazingly cool, if it is possible.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
... the patent office folks remember that bit about "obvious".
First you took something old and added "...but on a computer"
Then you took the same and it was "...but on a mobile device"
Then it was "...using geolocation data to..."
and now it is "...but powered wirelessly".
It would be nice if anyone who submitted a certain number of patent claims on obvious or existing ideas received a lifetime patent ban.
As it is we reward dishonesty and greed.
.. also commonly known as TV sets...
Nice summary reading fail. But, this is /. This device is supposed to be powered via induction, not batteries, and certainly not corded like a regular TV. It's not just the signal that's wireless. By the same token, it can't be considered truly mobile. Both signal and power are sent to the thing via induction, and the patent would likely involve some novel method of combining the signal with the power.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I was thinking more like this: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=178
"Rather than a free-standing slate/tablet computer, the Zenith CruisePAD was a remote terminal to one's PC. It was designed to allow the user to interact with that PC's applications from a distance over a wireless network. What made it interesting to me was that it let one do so directly on the CruisePAD's screen, using either a stylus or finger."
The Wireless Mainframe Terminal...
WOOT!!!!
the award goes to the guy who got to the patent office first, not the first guy who invented it.
It used to be first to invent. Now it's first to publish, and publishing doesn't necessarily mean filing a patent application. Say both Biddy and Chester come up with the same invention. If Biddy publishes it before Chester files his patent, this makes Biddy the inventor, and by the time Chester's application gets to the patent office, Biddy's publication has become prior art, and anybody can use it in court to invalidate Chester's patent.
So he's patenting "shining a light on a sheet and making bunny rabbits with his hands" ???
read more carefully...powered wirelessly.
So if I chose to copy their patent word for word and add '....in color!' or '...can access the internet!' at the end it would be an equally valuable innovation and invention worthy of exclusive economic ownership? What if I invent 'wireless shoes' and sue everyone that sells loafers?
Pathetic
Aren't we really just talking about a portable WiDi display that also happens to support an input device of some sort? How is this innovative or original?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Since when is cost a factor in the validity of a patent? Does it do the same tasks?
If you come up with a way of doing something, e.g. extracting a metal from ore, that costs 1/10 of what any other known method costs, you can certainly get a patent on that.
Of course, this doesn't appear to apply to the patent discussed in this article, but as a general principle, doing something more cheaply can be patentable.
Except for the discussion of power it sounds like what I first read about VNC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing The description I read described using it for things like telephone displays etc.
Sure, and I don't disagree with that as long as you're actually coming up with something new and not just combining technology in ways that have already been done.
If I take a device, and that device has notionally input, display, networking, and power systems ... if someone invents a better version of any of those systems, and you replace an older technology with it, have they invented something which is patentable? Or have they basically made an incremental and obvious enhancement?
I'd argue this is incremental extensions by applying existing technology to refine something which already exists. So, taking something which has wired internet, making it have wireless internet you haven't invented something new. If someone comes out with a better CPU, putting that into an existing device is pretty much the same thing.
Since none of dumb terminal, wireless networking, and wireless power were invented by Bezos ... what exactly is the invention here?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You're correct, a combination of known technologies that results in what one would expect from the combination is generally supposed to be considered obvious. It will be interesting to see what happens with this application.
Do we recall that hopeless eink tablet reader that was supposed to sell for 'pennies' because it relied on your phone to 'render' each page of the book, and the reader itself just used one of those digital picture frame chips popular years ago?
Do we remember Microsoft's second great tablet initiative that proposed similar 'DUMB' tablets that would simply display output rendered on your main desktop PC via a wireless link (after 2.5 years of work, they were cancelled on the verge of release over fears they would dilute the value of Windows licenses).
Do we recall Sun's 'thin client' terminals that would replace desktop PCs?
Bezos is a cretin who knows nothing about the history of computers, or indeed anything about computer science. ARM and process shrinks makes the issue of client side processing power a non-issue. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't need or want wireless linked displays sometimes. However, these wireless linked displays use H264 video streams as the software part of the transport layer, allowing for excellent performance with static or moving images.
Nvidia's project SHIELD uses this standard. So does 'wireless' HDMI. AMD also offers the same think in its new parts. The client (wireless display) just needs an ARM SoC good enough to decode HD H264, and to provide a wireless backpath for inputs. Latency is an issue, but this simply means the server side video encoding (of the desired output stream) must be as low latency as possible. Decoding, once a key-frame is acquired, is always low latency.
Bezos is a publicity seeking clueless cretin. He is a successful business man, but almost entirely by luck (providing a service that no-one else could be bothered to do at the same level of ambition). Everything he proposes here has been done before many times, is mostly wrong-headed for the applications he suggests, and is irrelevant in the light of wireless client display standards using H264 video streams.
Seems many technologies already do this like VNC.. services like onlive does streaming video as well.
Also, didn't MS's Origami Project turn out to be a dumb tablet hooked up to a PC running the OS? Or was that one of their other projects back then?