10 wild new patents: The future of tech?

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    Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued its 8,185,968th patent since 1790. Here's a rundown of some of the grooviest tech patents from the latest crop.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Until recently, Google didn't have many patents. Now it's stamping them out like license plates. Google netted 24 new patents on May 22nd. Google's US Patent 8,184,067 was just filed last July. The patent discloses a device configured to select an action that matches a power state transition on a head-mounted display (HMD) in the form of eyeglasses. For example, a tactile sensor on the device may detect inputs from the device's user and select an appropriate action.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Microsoft continues its patent dominance, garnering 45 new patents on May 22nd. Here is Diary-Free Calorimeter, US Patent 8,182,424. It discloses an indirect calorimeter that estimates nutritional caloric intake by periodically monitoring weight and sensing physical exercise, which can then be used in a calorimetry model derived from regression analysis of a population. The patent also discloses that a strap-on user device for tracking exercise can detect one or more of heart rate, body temperature, skin resistance, motion/acceleration, velocity, and an intelligent, integrated exercise machine.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Also from Microsoft comes Identifying Language Origin of Words, US Patent 8,185,376. The language of origin of a word is determined by analyzing non-uniform letter sequence portions of the word. The patent's primary use lies in proper pronunciation for text-to-speech systems.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Microsoft's US Patent No. 8,185,135 discloses a system for capturing and delivering location-based information and services that captures wireless landmark information (e.g., a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth access point) sent by mobile devices to build a map of locations based on the relationship between wireless landmarks that are visible to the mobile device at the same time.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    IBM continues growing in the virtual world with US Patent No. 8,185,829. The patent discloses a method for rating exchangeable gestures in a virtual world application. The method includes making a gesture owned by a first user of the virtual world application available to a second user of the virtual world application. In response to the second user providing a rating of the gesture, it stores the rating in a repository of the first user, determining a rating metric of the gesture using at least the rating received from the second user and communicating the rating metric to a third user of the virtual world application.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Among the 94 patents IBM obtained last week was US Patent 8,185,592. The patent discloses a method for sending emails that can't be forwarded to unintended third parties. This could be the latest must-have gadget for CEOs.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    This one is US Patent No. 8,185,411. It discloses a method of permitting controlled access to medical information in a variety of scenarios.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    US Patent 8,184,116 discloses a method for object-based avatar tracking. Once a range for an object in a virtual universe is identified, avatars in the object's viewable field may see it.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    US Patent No. 8,185,435 discloses methods for delivering content to customers of a service provider in accordance with a content demand curve. This allows a business model to be associated with the requested content, wherein the business model defines how the requested content is to be delivered to the customer and how the customer is to be billed for the requested content.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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    Facebook received two patents last week. One, US Patent 8,185,558, discloses a method for maintaining a data store of nodes and edges. For each of one or more users, they're used to determine if, how, and how much of a given user's content is shared with other users.

    Caption by: Gina Smith

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IBM continues growing in the virtual world with US Patent No. 8,185,829. The patent discloses a method for rating exchangeable gestures in a virtual world application. The method includes making a gesture owned by a first user of the virtual world application available to a second user of the virtual world application. In response to the second user providing a rating of the gesture, it stores the rating in a repository of the first user, determining a rating metric of the gesture using at least the rating received from the second user and communicating the rating metric to a third user of the virtual world application.

Caption by: Gina Smith

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