Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sproingie]

One obvious application of this would be for fitness apps. 

But really, patents are hardly a measure of a company's intent to market as much as they are quite often the idle fancy of someone with an interesting idea at the company who manages to go through the patent process at the company in order to get the nice bonus check and plaque.  Microsoft has lucite patent cubes, some engineers there have a wall of them in their office.

[cowofdoom78963]

I will care about it if really happens.

[Muz]

One obvious application of this would be for fitness apps. 

But really, patents are hardly a measure of a company's intent to market as much as they are quite often the idle fancy of someone with an interesting idea at the company who manages to go through the patent process at the company in order to get the nice bonus check and plaque.  Microsoft has lucite patent cubes, some engineers there have a wall of them in their office.

Yeah, I think it's more for fitness apps. But patents cost tens to hundreds of thousands. Even if MS is sitting on a big pile of money, they don't patent things just for the sake of doing it. If you patent something...
1. It could be to claim that it was their idea before someone else gets to it. An ego thing, but this costs money.
2. It's to sell to another company. Or to let someone build upon the invention and charge them for it.
3. It's to weaponize the concept and prevent people from using it (esp. Nintendo)
4. To have a limited monopoly over an invention.. use it themselves and keep others from using it.

My suspicion is either 2 or 3. I highly doubt it'd be to say "fat people can't play our games"

Suggests its use in a health game:

Physiological data that reflect a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication. Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise.

Suggests its use for dating stuff:

Physiological data that reflect the health and perhaps also mood also improve social interaction in virtual environments. People seeking to meet and become acquainted with particular types of people are not thwarted by the artificiality of avatars.

[Neruz]

My my, is it April 1st already?

[Alexhans]

why don't you guys Go to the source?
US PATENT & TRADEMARK OFFICE: AVATAR INDIVIDUALIZED BY PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTIC

That's what it is...

It has to do with the future generation of consoles that will involve "3d cameras" that recognize the movements, shapes and textures of things so you'll be able to play like if you had a Wii... but with your entire body...

A whole new paradigm for bloopers on youtube... XD

[sproingie]

patents cost tens to hundreds of thousands.

Actually most of those costs are legal fees, which are pretty well sunk costs for any company with full time patent lawyers on staff.  Costs less than two grand per filing, and you can bundle as many patents as you want per filing, only a couple hundred for every one after the third.  The "maintenance" fees get fairly pricey, somewhere near a thousand a year, so while they don't want to patent every last lame idea anyone thinks of, they're willing to throw a few million a year at a gamble that some will eventually pay off -- and that gamble's been shown to have pretty good odds.

[Muz]

Good point. I was thinking of other companies without full time patent lawyers

Anyway, it looks pretty damn cool. I'm sure they're going to ask for your permission before taking your medical record, so it's like a "Hey, I can make the Guitar Hero guy look like me" kind of thing. And having XBox Fitness take your medical record directly would be fun.

[G-Flex]

I used to work in a warehouse that stored medical records, so now I'm picturing Microsoft actually breaking HIPAA regulations, literally taking your hospital/doctor records and importing them into the system.

[Neonivek]

Guys, I don't think your looking at the larger picture

Microsoft is getting the Patent. they arn't creating the product.

Think of it! They are effectively patenting machines that tell you when to stop exorcising because your too unhealthy.

There are companies out there (well buisnesses would make more sense) that make money purely off patents (EVIL!)

Though it probably won't work unless someone stumbles into it (personally I don't think this merits a patent) afterall minigames during load screens is patented and thus no one uses them.

[Leafsnail]

Think of it! They are effectively patenting machines that tell you when to stop exorcising because your too unhealthy.

I have no idea why I found this so funny.

Though it probably won't work unless someone stumbles into it (personally I don't think this merits a patent) afterall minigames during load screens is patented and thus no one uses them.

I've played plenty of games with preloaders...

[sproingie]

If the movies are any indication, exorcisms are pretty strenuous work, so it really does pay to be in top condition when performing them!

[qwertyuiopas]

If my quick googling is correct, the minigame while loading is only for the initial loading, not mid-game loading.

You might be able to get around it by having it rather load to a menu that lets you select the main game or minigame at any time, but disables the option for any game that is loading at the time. There could be a button that at any time pauses the current game and returns to that menu screen, allowing, theoretically, one instance of each game open at the same time, paused. This could actually be a great feature, since you could unlock bonus games, and even leave the system with your game paused while someone else plays one of the other games. Maked one a non-game that just sits in the desktop corner, and you can browse the web while the main game loads. Also, if the load order were user specified...

I don't know much about patents, but I do know that they are deep legal things and that it is not impossible to avoid them with clever workarounds, and a good lawyer. And even that I only vaguely believe is true...

[eerr]

Patents are all about very specific details.

None of you have mentioned what microsoft is patenting! Only details pertaining to the product in question that forms the base for the patent.

You can't patent the idea of using someone's medical record for a game. It's just an idea.

Microsoft is making some sort of process. You know, like those things that weigh down Windows Vista.
Or the Bessmer process for producing steel.

[G-Flex]

Yeah, I tried explaining that, although I don't think anyone really noticed.


Of course, these are software patents we're talking about, which have a notorious history of being vague and awful, so who knows.

[Neruz]

Yeah, I tried explaining that, although I don't think anyone really noticed.


Of course, these are software patents we're talking about, which have a notorious history of being vague and awful, so who knows.

They also have a notorious history of failing utterly