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Google Patents Image-Capturing Walking Sticks
theodp writes "GeekWire reports that Google has patented an image-capturing walking stick, which can boldly go where no Google Street View Car can. The walking stick has embedded cameras and location sensors, and a switch at the bottom that causes the device to snap pictures whenever the stick hits the ground. The patent also covers using canes and crutches in a similar fashion."
Why? Is there really a need for something like this? Is google crossing the creepy line with this?
Gonna get a Street View of Hobbiton.
Is it also available in a 'pimp cane' model?
I had to double check this wasn't an April 1 story.
Now grumpy old men can enjoy technology while they chase kids off their lawns!
Someone had to Google map my lawn... AND ITS NOT GONNA BE DARN KIDS DOING IT! filterfilter
Adjustable Single Leg Monopod Camera Stand + a switch.
...so it can map your inner cavities.
... which can boldly go where no Google Street View Car can
Rightly so, cars are not allowed on the lawn.
none
Maybe next Google will market a version of the giant paper mache eyeballs that the Residents used to wear over their heads, that also takes and uploads pictures to its servers with location information.
Its so they can street view hiking paths and place they cant get their bike to go which is an area that I am hoping they expand to.
They're already working on the first generation of muttations. Don't say anything incriminating in the presence of talkative birds.
...the names and locations of WiFi hotspots?
I've never trusted old men with walking sticks, and I never will and I've never forgiven the fo..
I have figured out the pattern. /me Goes to register googlefalseteeth.com
Time to update the list of things that will let you automatically get a patent for something:
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Have gnu, will travel.
Did anyone else think of a walking stick bug? I had a vision of a creepy spynet made up of little bug-bots. Sounds more like a DARPA thing than a Google thing but who can tell anymore :P
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
GoogleScope. Street View of the world through the eyes of a sniper.
GoogleShotglass. Street View through the eyes of a drunk.
GoogleCokemirror. Street View through the eyes of a drug addict.
The goal of this project seems to be to map the places the google-street-cars cannot go: ea public buildings, parks, private properties and others.
I am sorry, but how is this not obvious? The only thing that is not obvious is why one would want to do this (although once you consider what Google is doing with Streetview, etc, even that goes away). However, as soon as one has a reason to do what this does, the solution (which is what they are patenting) is obvious.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
My Walking stick has a camera mount on it. 90% of the time it has a small Point & Shoot mounted so I claim Prior-art (along with many others)
Walking sticks like this have been around for sometime
The USPTO have really excelled themselves once again.
I'd rather have one that shoots lightning. Just sayin.
They lost me at the first line of the patent..
"An elongated member is provided with one or more imaging sensors, location sensors, and a switch in its bottom end."
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
The prior art on the camera in a giant hat that Homer Simpson wore precludes that particular 'engineering design.'
I'm ok with that as long as it plays the backing music to My Second Wife by The Residents over and over again while it's recording.
...it just won't be complete.
Maybe the first thing the patent office should ask is "why"?
Really, does putting a camera on a stick warrant protection from a patent?
Is there any real competitive advantage Google has owning this patent.
Is there absolutely no example of anybody ever doing this in the past. Absolutely nobody in history has ever put a camera on a stick?
The patent office is swamped with patent requests but there should be some fundamental litmus test that should be applied to even accept a patent.
Otherwise, charge $1 million dollars to file a patent, period. Its quite obvious that billion dollar corporations are exploiting the patent system because its cheap to do so. Maybe if there was a real monetary threat to filing bullshit patents then corporations might stop patenting rounded corners or cameras on sticks or glasses.
And, of course if something is not truly novel and beneficial to society tell the patent applicant to fuck off.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you...
The Google Pimp Cane.
seeing that done when glass plate negatives were still used. Didn't they have a patent office then?
Don't wear a skirt or dress around someone with one of these ladies
Can I patent something that is still in design phase that isn't even working yet? Do I just need to submit simple sketches and wiggly lines with number boxes pointing to stuff?
Again proof the Patent office is a joke. this is simply attaching something to another thing.
I would like to patent the method of attaching things to other things in order to file a patent.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Isn't this the same as a monopod which has been around for years.
Isn't a cell phone on a monopad the same? And weights less?
I hereby committ to the pubic domain the invention of a device consisting of a ball capable of elastic collision upon impact with a surface (a process defined here as "bounce"), embedded with a camera that will take a picture with each occurence of such bounce. This device will possess the ability to perform the described action while interfacing with a computer.
Of course, it's only public domain if someone else hasn't patented this idea beforehand.
It seems google couldn't be bothered typing "camera cane" into their own search engine and checking for results.
http://www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/canecamera.html
without getting your picture taken!
I have no StreetViews of this place...
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Would have had a great time with one.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
What if you take a tripod with a camera screwed into the top and fold all of the legs together, add a little bit of duct tape to construct a walking stick. Would you have to pay royalities to google for using their "invention"?
If I put the same components in a pogo stick or bowling ball do I deserve a patent for that too?
...we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.
Why trigger it when it hits the ground? It must be running the gps constantly, so why not when it moves a given distance? That's what's really required.
I mean, can you tilt the thing to point up skirts and the like?
http://youtu.be/0iTcwuzH58k
Such is the state of the US patent system that it's acutally news when something new and novel gets a patent.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Google has become the largest spy network ever on planet earth. And its sickening how people just lap this up like big fluffy lap dogs and don't bring this giant spy to its knees.
# me old bamboo, me old bamboo /#
you better never bovver wiv me old bamboo
you can take me 'at or me bumbershoot
but you better never bovver wiv me old bamboo
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."