Shades of The Matrix

Microsoft wants to turn your body into a battery.

Okay, that's scaremongering and inaccurate. But it sure is fun to say.

Microsoft has been awarded a patent for using human skin as a power conduit and data bus.

Patent No. 6,754,472, which was published Tuesday, describes a method for transmitting power and data to devices worn on the body and for communication of data between those devices.

Comments

[joe]

Well put!

"You, sir, are a damned liar!"

"Yes, but hear me out."

[Agent Gates]

Mr. Anderson, you didn't really think you could get away, did you? I'm going to take great pleasure in killing you. Wait, what's that you're using? Linux!?!? You'll destroy our monopoly on operating systems!

[garym]

As long as we're recycling movie quotes:

Use my body as a battery? I'm shocked -- shocked!

Microsoft knows a lot more about software than the makers of the Matrix ever did. If they'd just read up on the elementary notion of a process termination command, they could have gotten rid of Neo without having to use those Agent kludges.

[drf]

does this mean that we now know why men have nipples (besides for candlewax dripping, of course)?

inquiringly,
drf

[Czar]

And so we come another step toward being able to "jack in" just standing on the street. Nifty.

Of course, I'm still looking forward to 30 years from now when hackers find ways to break into other peoples' biologically-integrated data networks. You think we're worried about spyware and computer viruses now...

It's going to be an interesting future.

[Skeptikos]

Anybody remember billy boy trying to patent "window"?

I hear they are working on a patent concerning replication of intelligent organic systems.

The gonads. Ours. In a vice grip.

[Skeptikos]

I was reading about this, and maybe I missed something but it sounds a little like the time Billy boy tried to trademark "window", all applications.

I hear they are working on a patent for self replicating intelligent organic systems.

Gonads. Ours. In a vicegrip.

[thoreau]

They've already got the patent for zeroes and ones. Or at least that's what the Onion said several years ago, but now the archived article is deemed "premium" content.

[Christopher T. Wetmore]

Well, MS may or may not be a monopoly, but, to misquote Muhammad Ali: "No Operating System ever called me taxpayer."

[Andrew Lynch]

Whoa, Microsoft Skin(tm). How cool is that? I'm just getting used to the fact that my smartphone is significantly more powerful than Kirk's communicator.

[Gimme Back My Dog]

obligatory onion link:
http://home.att.net/~jbcole/humor/Microsoft_patents.htm

[Rick Barton]

Wow. Cyberpunk came in under the radar of ordinary society and now it's becoming "ordinary society"!

"Johnny Mnemonic"..."Neuromancer"...William Gibson...the musical group, "Information Society"...Damn; I feel like a cy-fi story. Where are my mirror shades?! Does anyone know of any good libertarian cyberpunk?

BTW, I used to know the guy who wrote the line: "cyberpunk is coming in under the radar of ordinary society", and sold it to Billy Idol for a sum of $3,500 I think it was. Idol used it in a song on his CD, "Cyber Punk"

http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2003/12/billy_idols_cyb.html

[Andrew Lynch]

Psion,

GPS takes care of the orbital issue, but since no passing starships will return my call, I can't speak to the transporter lock. :/

[Douglas Fletcher]

Soylent Bill

[FZ]

The thing is to put a motor in your body.

[s.m. koppelman]

I'm pretty sure that five or so years ago, IBM had a system in their labs for syncing a PDA on your person that involved placing your hand on some kind of contact point.

[Psion]

Andrew Lynch,
You mean your cellphone has a signal range that reaches orbit and can also provide a transporter lock?! Sweet! Who's the manufacturer?

[John Hensley]

No Skeptikos, Microsoft (it's a company, you know, not just one person) tried and did trademark (do you know the difference?) the word "Windows" as applied to software, and was entitled to do so since there was no other software product by that name.

S***. You. Full of it.

[CharlesWT]

A device that produces electricity from blood could be used to turn people into "human batteries".

Researchers in Japan are developing a method of drawing power from blood glucose, mimicking the way the body generates energy from food.

Theoretically, it could allow a person to pump out 100 watts - enough to illuminate a light bulb.

But that would entail converting all the food eaten by the individual into electricity. In practice, less power would be generated since food is needed by the body.

However the scientists say the "bio-nano" generator could be used to run devices embedded in the body, or sugar-fed robots. Power from blood could lead to 'human batteries'