Google’s plan for WORLD DOMINATION takes shape. And it begins with a patent Google has been awarded a patent related to systems and methods for "allocating tasks to a plurality of robotic devices". Sprawled across its Mountain View base, the Chocolate Factory hivemind may indeed be plotting world domination, but for the moment it is at least conscious of the need to collaborate with the state in …
Who needs a robot army when you could employ a fleet of Google driverless vehicles packed with explosives?
> Computer-controlled taxis lorries and trains
Even the London Underground - especially when they used carboard punch-card to control things..
(And lets not forget DLR - one of my brothers helped write the early sinalling and control stuff for that. Probably one of the reasons I never use it..)
"Next same patents but for autonomous Taxis, Lorrys, trains and so on."
As another poster pointed out.. already covered.
Your robot taxi has a limited supply of charge/fuel along with more infrequent regular servicing.
That's essentially what this patent does. But cars are just a subset..
A factory automatically building custom articles also has feedstock, transportation, storage, and lifecycle/health of machines to consider.
Very forward looking of Google.
This is where a billion dollar corporation is allowed to freely troll based on their income, while a smaller troll would be fought tooth and nail if they tried such a patent. A patent to detect health levels?Yeh, I've played real time strategy games in the last 30 years, what's the big deal?
Big trolls can get away with this, because the big trolls bought laws to kill off the small trolls, making the 'club' ever so tighter.
"So once again Google's patent extortion continues to bring in thirty times the revenue of their own robotics platform... and I've still yet to see a Googlebot in the wild!"
Posted on El Reg by Buzz Jaikuglass, April 2020.
Help me out here. I think that just describing something on some sci-fi novel or making a movie prop to resemble something performing some (at the time) imaginary things are not sufficient grounds neither to award a patent nor to invalidate another.
Actually building a model and demonstrating its use according to the patent would.
Right?
A movie - or Donald Duck cartoon is certainly enough to invalidate a patent.
http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/donaldduck/
Actually building a model was abandoned a long time ago, precisely because it gave advantages to mega-corps. Lone inventor with an idea for a fusion reactor? Just build a working model and you can patent it.
Actually building a model and demonstrating its use according to the patent would. Right?
If that were the case, patents on "business procedures" and on "how to distract a cat with a laser pointer" would be rightly impossible.
And I am talking about IEEE Intelligent Systems or AI Magazine, not to mention books about multirobot coordination here.
"allocating tasks to a plurality of robotic devices"
Anyone remember in the eighties and nineties the crimes of 'steaming' and 'home invasion' when a large crowd of little bad lads would get together and go through a railway carriage mugging everyone or invading a home and stealing anything portable ( I think home invasion started in California and I know trains into London have been 'steamed' in the past) and presenting just too many miscreants/targets to do anything about it.
Now a swarm of robots will be able to target sections of the public and hit them with a barrage of advertising (or worse).
Time to invest in a significantly powerful cattle prod I think.
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