Apple exploring wireless system for quantifying the unquantifiable

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  • Reply 21 of 37
    fulldecentfulldecent Posts: 108member
    Q: what exactly happened to a package from FedEx that arrived with its contents broken

    A: 25
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  • Reply 22 of 37
    This sounds like "Compass + GPS + Accelerometer + Date/Time + ??? = PROFIT!"



    The underpant gnomes are at work here.



    That said, the new iPhone does all of this, so a few more years of miniaturization and it should be possible to put this patent into action on shipping containers and bikes, etc. Apparently the "???" in the strategy refers to royalties from US Patent Law.
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  • Reply 23 of 37
    Apple: making 1984 possible.
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  • Reply 24 of 37
    technotechno Posts: 737member
    I love how Apple pushes the envelope in the way it innovates and applies their R&D towards solutions to our day to day needs. Many of these needs we don't even know we have.
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  • Reply 25 of 37
    eko425eko425 Posts: 6member
    Call me a pessimist, but I could see this technology used to unfairly void limited and AppleCare warranties. For instance, you bring your disabled iPhone to the Genius Bar, and a Genius tells you that "because the MMD sensor has recorded a 'drop event' 3 months back, we are unable to honor your AppleCare plan." Lets face it, who hasn't dropped their iPhone, even if it was in a case or fell on something soft. Am I paranoid?
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  • Reply 26 of 37
    camroidv27camroidv27 Posts: 523member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by grebo View Post


    I'm sure this could be used for virtual porn too.



    That's been done too. I remember taking a "New Media" class in college that went over all sorts of bizare new stuff. One was a porn site where you could interact with the other person through a web site. Clicking on different buttons would make a werid apperatus do different things. You could buy one for yourself and have a two-way interaction for a price.



    Technology and such always find their way into porn and sexual desires. From the BBC version of Coupling (good show btw) "When man first created fire, we didn't think of using it for cooking. We thought; hey, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!"



    Yeah... my post was totally un-Apple related... and its too early here to care.
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  • Reply 27 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Producer View Post


    I just hope Apple has something similar to Natal up it's sleeve.





    I just watched the video on Matal, and I think its one of the biggest jokes I have ever seen. You will sneeze while watching a movie and the system will freeze, hahaha
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  • Reply 28 of 37
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    What exactly does this patent mean ?? What new features may expect ?
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  • Reply 29 of 37
    bg_nycbg_nyc Posts: 189member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by grebo View Post


    I'm sure this could be used for virtual porn too.



    Now you're talking!
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  • Reply 30 of 37
    os11os11 Posts: 30member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jpellino View Post


    If they can provide a NikePlus-ish solution for cycling they'd sell a million of them.



    everyone needs to read this month's WIRED magazine, it talks about how involved Steve Jobs was with Nike in designing the Nike +... so now we know the connection to the rest of these ideas.
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  • Reply 31 of 37
    How much of these single use pieces of junk will eventually end up in landfills? Can these things be reused? Do they require batteries? Are they recyclable?

    IMO Some of the applications sound like legitimate uses but some are obviously way over the top. Effectiveness of Karate? Your opponent or judge will tell you, no need for sensors.

    Really this concept is "nifty" but I am tired of electronics that clearly can't be upgraded, reused, or recycled properly. The environmental impacts must be weighed as well.
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  • Reply 32 of 37
    os11os11 Posts: 30member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperMacGuy View Post


    How much of these single use pieces of junk will eventually end up in landfills?



    yes, the Nike + battery can be replaced, google for lots of people doing it... but it's a current blind spot with Steve Jobs... he is probably betting that someday batteries will last for 5 years on a single charge, but forgetting we live in the "today"... not 2028.



    i'm a HUGE fan of sensors of all types.... when i drive away from my house, my air conditioning should step down, when i'm driving towards it and the probability is high i'm going back to my house, it should "kick on"... ready for me...



    doors should open went i'm accelerating towards them, close when i'm accelerating away from them... etc...



    the future so bright, i've gotta wear apple sensors!
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  • Reply 33 of 37
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    First thing I thought of when reading this article was... "motion capture". It seems like a low-level motion analysis and perhaps supply chain efficiency tool. Think much larger than just games here. Also, keep in mind that the sensors that would apply to this patent may actually be too small to see, not just the Band-Aid sized things as suggested in the application. In the near future, you may be able to 'spray' on, or inhale (as in an atomizer) a cloud of nano-scale sensors that would provide an overall model of your movements and physical well-being to a central computing architecture remotely or in your iPhone.
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  • Reply 34 of 37
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,213member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by crees! View Post


    I wonder if this concept originated from work done at Pixar. The movie industry (and sports industry) uses this tech to record body movements and then analyze the data for further application.



    I don't think so. This involves wireless technology to track realtime action - not filming and tracking dots/balls for a motion study.



    I think the big news here is the combination of large quantities of strain gauges, shock indication, ion detectors, acceleration gauges, etc all combined with a very low cost realtime clock and low power wireless communication used to collect potentially large amounts of data that can be recombined with a DB to indicate shipping and handling phases, exercise, competition.



    If you can collect a large enough data set then it has the potential to be used for not only everyday tracking but it also (depending on the level of analysis of the data collected) could/should allow for better industrial design of products and the packaging.



    As someone else mentioned it could be used for warranty purposes (to determine eligibility) - for or against. If deployed to study weaknesses it could possibly help solve problems such as frayed power cords, etc. If used carefully it certainly seems to minimize the Heisenberg effect which is huge using today's tech - this would seem to be minimized with very small devices.



    As with anything that has the ability to track a person or persons there is the fear of 1984 - the ethics of dealing with this are not necessarily more complicated than any other - it does point out the need to have a well defined way of dealing with all privacy issues cause this, and a lot more, are coming.



    The trick with using this looks like smart analysis of a large set of data.
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  • Reply 35 of 37
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Incidentally, a better way to view the patent is here.
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  • Reply 36 of 37
    londonlondon Posts: 24member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by crees! View Post


    I wonder if this concept originated from work done at Pixar. The movie industry (and sports industry) uses this tech to record body movements and then analyze the data for further application.



    Pixar had the Academy rules changes to that the animation category excludes films made with motion capture. They explicitly don't use or need mo-cap, so they wouldn't have been behind this.



    The commercial potential for this could be huge, dwarfing the iPhone business. If these can be manufactured cheaply (and protected well-enough via patents), this could become something put in millions of packages and be used in countless other applications. But they'd have to be dirt cheap, like rfids.
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  • Reply 37 of 37
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Damn_Its_Hot View Post


    I think the big news here is the combination of large quantities of strain gauges, shock indication, ion detectors, acceleration gauges, etc all combined with a very low cost realtime clock and low power wireless communication used to collect potentially large amounts of data that can be recombined with a DB to indicate shipping and handling phases, exercise, competition.



    If you can collect a large enough data set then it has the potential to be used for not only everyday tracking but it also (depending on the level of analysis of the data collected) could/should allow for better industrial design of products and the packaging.



    As someone else mentioned it could be used for warranty purposes (to determine eligibility) - for or against. If deployed to study weaknesses it could possibly help solve problems such as frayed power cords, etc. If used carefully it certainly seems to minimize the Heisenberg effect which is huge using today's tech - this would seem to be minimized with very small devices.



    As with anything that has the ability to track a person or persons there is the fear of 1984 - the ethics of dealing with this are not necessarily more complicated than any other - it does point out the need to have a well defined way of dealing with all privacy issues cause this, and a lot more, are coming.



    The trick with using this looks like smart analysis of a large set of data.



    I imagine once this is functioning and used on people in the workplace, a lot of folks will be shown the door.
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