From Kinect Scans to Google Cars: Intriguing Patent Applications of 2011
By Rob Scott
January 4, 2012
January 4, 2012
- Wolfgang Gruener, writing for tech blog Tom’s Hardware, selects five of the most interesting patent concepts from the past 12 months (only one of which has been granted thus far by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office).
- Microsoft patent application for Body Scan: “This patent application hints that a future Kinect will eliminate the need for a user to create an avatar. Kinect may recreate you on the screen and integrate you even more deeply in game play and entertainment applications than you can experience today.”
- Apple patent application for Walk-Up Printing without Drivers: “Imagine a world in which you wouldn’t have to worry about drivers anymore; you can simply walk up to a printer and print a document.”
- IBM patent application for Multi-Petascale Highly Efficient Parallel Supercomputer: “IBM said that more than 100 Petaflops will be possible with 1,024 compute node ASICS in 512 racks, representing a total of 524,288 16-core PowerPC A2 CPUs.”
- Microsoft patent application for Fast Machine Booting Through Streaming Storage: “I consider this as one of the most significant computer software patents filed this year. Microsoft does not just target this technology at enterprises; it aims it at every conceivable computing device.”
- Google patent for Transitioning a Mixed-Mode Vehicle to Autonomous Mode: “The patent received quite a bit of coverage as it is a key document securing a phase of autonomous driving. Specifically, the document describes the moment in which a hybrid-mode car switches from a human driver to autonomous drive.”
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