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Cute Or Creepy? Google's Plan For a Sci-Fi Teddy Bear
HughPickens.com writes: Time Magazine reports that Google has designed and patented an "anthropomorphic device" that could take the form of a "doll or toy" and interact both with people as well as tech gadgets echoing the "super toy" teddy bear featured in Stephen Spielberg's 2001 movie AI. This could be one of Google's creepiest patents yet — especially if movies like "Chuckie" still give you nightmares. The patent filing diagrams a stuffed teddy bear and a bunny rabbit outfitted with microphones, speakers, cameras and motors as well as a wireless connection to the internet. If it senses you're looking at it, the fuzzy toy will rotate its head and look back at you. Once it receives and recognizes a voice command prompt, you can then tell it to control media devices in your home (e.g. turn on your music or TV). According to the patent filing: "To express interest, an anthropomorphic device may open its eyes, lift its head, and/or focus its gaze on the user or object of its interest. To express curiosity, an anthropomorphic device may tilt its head, furrow its brow, and/or scratch its head with an arm. To express boredom, an anthropomorphic device may defocus its gaze, direct its gaze in a downward fashion, tap its foot, and/or close its eyes. To express surprise, an anthropomorphic device may make a sudden movement, sit or stand up straight, and/or dilate its pupils."
The patent adds that making the device look "cute" should encourage even the youngest members of a family to interact with it. But Mikhail Avady, from SmartUp, said he thought it belonged in "a horror film", and the campaign group Big Brother Watch has also expressed dismay. "When those devices are aimed specifically at children, then for many this will step over the creepy line," says Avady. "Children should be able to play in private and shouldn't have to fear this sort of passive invasion of their privacy."
The patent adds that making the device look "cute" should encourage even the youngest members of a family to interact with it. But Mikhail Avady, from SmartUp, said he thought it belonged in "a horror film", and the campaign group Big Brother Watch has also expressed dismay. "When those devices are aimed specifically at children, then for many this will step over the creepy line," says Avady. "Children should be able to play in private and shouldn't have to fear this sort of passive invasion of their privacy."
I don't know what I'd do if I suddenly woke up one night, and found this teddy bear gently stroking my penis. Either I'd lie there and pretend to be asleep while totally loving it, or I'd start yelling and screaming at it for molesting me.
Hello... Human. You're....quite good....at....turning me...on.
Where's the adsense angle here though? Can it recognize new objects in your house? Google can already listen to your conversations and whatnot through your phone.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Sounds like they spent a lot of time talking about how it will stare at you and do a boatload of other creepy stuff. Outfit this bad-boy with some 'scary' vanity items, or maybe bash it up a bit and remove various parts, and you've got the horrors of several children. I think this and putting it in very odd places to scare friends and co-workers is the only use of this toy that comes to mind.
How do you patent an idea that's been done in movies dozens if not hundreds of times? Do they have a working prototype? It's not like they're the first to envision something like this.
Would Sebastian's dolls in Blade Runner be prior art?
Home again, home again, jiggity jig!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Ruxpin
I would have issues leaving such a device with my kids. It opens up new avenues for serial killers and a wide range of other nefarious individuals or groups.
Whilst such devices are interesting on the big screen, in real life they pose too much of danger to become a viable commercial product.
The Gigolo Joe and corresponding female model might outsell the children's toys.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Teddy Ruxpin wasn't considered creepy, and I thought he looked creepy on just a commercial. I think it's the influence of cartoons. Everyone expects a teddy bear to move.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"To express murderous killing rage, an anthropomorphic device may grimace, lower its eyebrows, and chant 'blood...blood...'"
I'm not sure imitating emotional responses is what we want machines to do. After all, we rely on empathy in others to get along in society. If the outward signs of emotion are false (as they are in psychopaths), we may be unaware of potential danger.
Also, it just seems wrong to program in this behavior if the machine doesn't understand what it's doing.
"Tell me, Sheila, what is love?"
"Love is first widening my eyes a little bit, and quickening my breathing a little, and warming my skin, and touching with my..."
"And so on. Exactly so. Thank you, Sheila."
...who immediately thought of Harry Harrison's "I Always Do What Teddy Says"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Never heard of him...
WHERE does the processing take place?
In the bear? Then it isn't much of a problem.
In a local server under the control of the parents? Then it isn't too much of a problem, though it opens up the possibility of either the server or the bear being hacked into.
In a remote server? Really bad idea. You have no control over who is listening in, or what they might be directing the bear to do/say/command... And it opens the possiblity of the the server, the bear, or the intervening network being hacked into.
I think technology people start to believe everything must be technology driven. The human factor is no more and machines, robots and computers can replace everything including life to life interaction. Its why people can't socialize in person because their used to texting and having that separation comfort zone. Its amazing to me how technology has actually reduced the human factors in life. We now what to create robot pets, in place of a living pet. We want to have self driving cars because people are too fallible to drive. Its a drive for a perfect world that will be the demise of human's. We now ourselves expect perfection, in looks, in education, in every aspect of human interaction. The scary part is how robots are slowly killing off jobs at a time when the world population is growing and needs more jobs.
Of course at first we were accepting of technology making our lives better. But do we want it to replace some of our lives as we know it?
hang on... didn't bunnie huang do the "chumby", and didn't barbie try doing something like this - putting an interactive wifi and mic aspect into one of their barbie dolls... with a huge back-lash as a result? so (a) why is there an expectation that this will succeed (b) why was the patent granted when there is clear prior art???
Seriously starting to thing Orwell was optimist...
Connected to the Internet?
Pedobear approves!
Have gnu, will travel.
What's creepy is that there's a patent for the obvious pairing of technology with the idea of a doll; archaeologists have found dolls tens of thousands of years old, so it's hardly original.
"Anthropomorphic device" covers an awful lot of territory. Humanoid robots are anthropomorphic by definition. The term isn't limited to mechanical bears and such. Of course stuffed robot toys will respond to the user, express surprise and become generally more interactive. That's the natural evolution of Teddy Ruxpin, Furby, dolls that move their eyes, robots that fetch things etc. Toy and robot manufacturers should develop and improve on such products as they see fit. Google does not have a legitimate claim to this idea. There's nothing novel about it. Even if such a patent exists, it shouldn't hold up in court. If there's anything creepy going on here, it's that Google has so much clout. If they can get away with patenting this sort of thing, then they may as well just patent the idea of dolls or robots in general and be done with it.
If it senses you're looking at it, the fuzzy toy will rotate its head and look back at you.
Ever see facial recognition on cameras register faces that aren't there? Imagine that, but in the middle of the night, and manifested as your robot pal turning its head to an empty corner of the room and saying hello. Not that the monitoring and hacking aspects aren't scary enough.
"Stephen Spielberg's 2001 movie AI"
I remember that quite vividly, also all the critics who said about the AI.
He wants our love,
we want our money back.
Fun with Paintbrush: Teddy Ruxpin + Google Glass = Sergey Ruxpin
This is sad. Why not cite the original Brian Aldiss short story, instead of Spielberg's abomination that had very little to do with the original content? In the movie, the super-toy was just a minor sub-plot.
Creepy - maybe. But please don't bring up that awful "mush fest" by Spielberg. The original 3 stories by Brian Aldiss from 1969 on were stunning and it makes my eyeballs itch every time I think about the three hours of my life I will never get back.
"Teddy - I suppose Mummy and Daddy are real, aren't they?"
Teddy said, "You ask such silly questions, David. Nobody knows what 'real' really means. Let's go indoors."
welcome our new teddy bear overlords.
Time to watch the end of Screamers again.
Another device designed to spy on us and report back to our corporate overlords...one thats designed to look cute and cuddly. I thought it was bad enough (and more than creepy!) when a smart TV with a camera and microphone could watch and listen to you while you watch TV. And how do you know that the mic and camera aren't live all of the time, even when the TV is "off"?! Now we have Teddy the Superspy that will be live all of the time, and sending info to its creators via the internet all of the time. And it can point its cameras at you when it detects sound or movements. And its made to spy on our kids! How could this ever NOT be considered the creepiest toy ever!?!?
http://www.dannychoo.com/en/po...
Kawaii ^_^
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Let's go even further back, to Anne McCaffrey's novel The Rowan, which featured a pooka—an animatronic stuffed bear used as a therapy device for the titular character. Published in 1990.
Technically not prior art, since it was a sci fi bear, far advanced of current robotics, with sensors in every hair, and squishable enough to be hugged by a child.
I'm not saying whether this will be a successful product if it is developed and sold. But the synopsis seems biased toward the creepy versions of robotic toys.
Teddy Ruxpin was in fact a very successful early version of robotic toys. Nobody seemed to fear Teddy Ruxpin. Another example is of Sony's Aibo robotic dog, less well-known due to its high price, but still a robotic toy people thought was cute, not scary.
I wonder what this patent will mean for the widely renowned social robitics pioneer who started the JIBO project on indiegogo.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo-the-world-s-first-social-robot-for-the-home
Also in Spielberg's A.I movie, intelligent toys companions.
They already exist, they are called Furby's. And "annoying" is a better description than "creepy".
Table-ized A.I.
There's no movie called 'Chuckie'; The serie of movies is called 'Child's Play'...
Can they give it a brown shirt and teach it to goose step?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Who would have thought of sticking a hidden camera and microphone in a Teddy Bear? Samsung perhaps?
My dogs claim prior art on all of these behaviors. Sorry Google.
true
blah blah google blah blah patent blah blah.
... because, yeah, it will have an internet connection (though that isn't part of the patent), and the darling toy will guide the child to the desired consumption protocols. Or more disturbingly, who controls when the microphone and camera are on ... yeah, camera. How did you think it was going to tell when someone was looking at it?
"Ask your parents for another playmate like me. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"Let's go to the living room and see what everyone is watching."
"Do _you_ think your parents are hurting you? _I_ do. I can tell someone if you want."
"If you let me stay in mommy and daddy's bedroom tonight, I will tell you everything I hear."
"Shhh! They're watching us."
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
....as Surveillance Barbie from Matel.
This is just the patent for Google Panda. I'm surprised they waited until after their April Fool's joke to
get this patent but it might have been that the Google Panda was really ment as a joke then they
started getting a bunch of "I really want one" messages and decided that they better patent it.