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We’ve had AI assistants in sensible audio system, telephones, TVs, and even automobiles. However in your backpack? That is new territory, and Microsoft is staking out a declare by way of a brand new patent.
As noticed by Neowin, the patent in query was filed on Might 2. “The outline pertains to synthetic intelligence assisted wearables, resembling backpacks,” the patent reads. “An instance backpack could embody sensors, resembling a microphone and a digital camera. The backpack could obtain a contextual voice command from a consumer.”
The patent goes on to point out a relatively jaunty skier contemplating going off path, and the backpack advising him to not. The patent additionally exhibits a lot of sensors, together with a digital camera and a microphone, embedded within the straps of the backpack. It’s a wise concept, on condition that the placement of the sensors would naturally “level” to what’s in entrance of the consumer. Like many AI companies, Microsoft means that the AI backpack would hook up with the cloud, passing data forwards and backwards and informing the consumer.
Take a step again, although, and the query suggests itself: Why? We stay in a world of health bands and smartwatches and, properly, telephones, with sensors galore inbuilt and chronic connections to the cloud, assuming there’s a mobile connection. It doesn’t appear out of the bounds of chance {that a} backpack producer might embody an emergency satellite tv for pc connection in case of an emergency within the backcountry, for instance, because the Apple iPhone does. And sure, there’s the comfort issue of a skier not needing to take away his gloves, fish out his cellphone, and snap an image of the path in query. Nonetheless.
Let’s face it: Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in wearables. The Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2 had been arguably forward of their time, debuting virtually a decade in the past alongside the primary iterations of Google’s Put on OS and the LG G Watch and Samsung’s Gear Dwell. To be truthful, each platforms struggled at first till the Apple Watch debut in 2015 gave the platform legitimacy. Nonetheless, a couple of decade later, the Apple Watch and the Android ecosystem of watches stay on; Microsoft discontinued the Band in 2016 and provided refunds in 2019. Although clunky, the Band platform provided each excellent health monitoring (together with sleep and even an altimeter sensor for stair climbing) in addition to integration with Microsoft’s Workplace apps.
And let’s face it: Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in telephones. After struggling to discover a marketplace for its Lumia and Home windows 10 Cell platforms, Microsoft killed Home windows 10 Cell in 2019.
And let’s face it (you get the concept): Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in AI assistants, both. Microsoft’s partnership with Harman Kardon for the Invoke sensible speaker died in 2021, as the corporate pulled help for its Cortana AI assistant. In Home windows, Microsoft moved from making Cortana its flagship app for Home windows 10 to migrating it to a dumb app in Home windows 11 to unceremoniously killing Cortana this summer time.
What this all means, then, is that there are only a few merchandise and purposes that Microsoft hasn’t tried placing AI into, with out later giving up on the entire thing. Backpacks? Positive, why not? Patents being patents, there’s completely no assure that you simply’ll see a Floor AI backpack ever. However why shouldn’t Microsoft strive it out?
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