back to article Apple wants to OWN YOUR VERY SOLE

Clothes that track your every move could fill Apple fanbois' wardrobes after the fruity tech titan patented new wearable technology. The designs, approved yesterday, describe "smart garments" with embedded sensors and a two-way communications link to an external database. Based on the existing Nike+ iPod trainers, the new …

COMMENTS

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  1. Danny 14

    hmm

    prior art , i.e. nike+?

    1. ThomH

      Nike+ was co-designed by Apple and Nike so it's credible that Apple did the hardware part and retained the relevant intellectual property rights.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Popcorn

    Yes?

  3. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    FAIL

    Help me out here...

    I'm trying to come up with a list of reasons why I might want to buy clothing that sells me to advertisers.

    1)

    er, that's it.

    1. Mako

      Not only that...

      ...but they remind you when you "need" to buy new ones? The need according to whom? And how often is the message repeated?

      I wear old trainers while gardening or working on the car. I really don't want them texting me every five minutes to tell me that I should replace them.

      No, I think this is one innovation I'll pass up.

      1. Andy Fletcher

        Mako, your first big mistake...

        ...was to assume you are the norm.

        A user in my office had some weather widget on her desktop that told her if it started to rain. You guessed it, she sits by a window. And has an iPhone. Whether or not something is actually useful is no longer buying criteria for "normal" people as I see it.

        1. Colin Miller

          I used to run the KDE weather taskbar applet, and sat at window-seat about 5 miles from the airport the applet was reporting. But that was as a self-deprecating joke.

    2. ItsNotMe
      Coat

      @ Neil Barnes

      Here's another reason:

      2)

  4. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    Picture.

    It sends adverts to your shoes? That's what one of the flows would seem to be saying.

    FFS Apple! It's bad enough that I'm pestered to buy shit by my kids, I'd probably go batshit insane if my shoes got in on the act too.

  5. Seanmon
    Stop

    Okay

    That's fucking ridiculous.

  6. Andrew Jones 2

    Oh look at that - Apple patents more tech that already exists.......

  7. SiempreTuna
    WTF?

    Prior Art?

    Prior patents, more like: wasn't there a company pushing this sort of thing about 10 years ago?

    Whoever sorts Apple's patent applications is worth his weight in gold: they'll be given a patent for breathing next.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Breathing patent

      Don't even choke about it.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just like the idiot flashing shoes

    Just as it is funny when a Bad Guy gets nabbed because he was wearing flashing shoes whilst committing crimes at night, it will be funny to see people with this stuff going anywhere at the next Vegas-based trade show or conference, when the Eye In The Sky (all the various surveillance systems the casinos have) spots them having electronics in their clothes. The casinos take a dim view of that, especially since the Eudemonic Pie folks tried to beat roulette.

    Let alone all the facilities that now ban anything that could remotely be construed as "recording devices".

    1. Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)

      Yeah, that

      I can't wait to see one of these at airport security.

      "Is that a shoe-bomb?!?"

      "No, it's my iPod!"

      "Yeah, right! Watch out boys, we got a real live terrorist here!"

      And so on.

  9. Aberdeen Angus
    Stop

    Prior Art?

    Clarks Wayfinders

  10. mark 63 Silver badge
    Joke

    what a load

    Until they make shoes that walk me home from the pub , or preferably drive , i aint interested.

    As long as the driving shoes dont nick a car go on a joyride and drive it into a canal

    cos shoes do have souls!

    1. DavidK
      Pint

      "shoes that walk me home from the pub"

      Haven't you woken up safely in bed after a night on the lash before, and wondered how you got there? These already exist, and that's not a patent, it's magic.

  11. storagedock
    Alert

    Diagram

    Force sensitive shoes!!!!!! When is the iLightsaber getting patented?!?!?!?!

  12. truCido
    Thumb Up

    airport security is going to have a lot of fun!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      As in

      "here comes another knobjockey draped head to foot in iStuff, let's give him the full fingers-up-the-arse treatment and while we're at it scan his files for any decent pr0n."

  13. George Nacht
    Facepalm

    As my very German old friend said,

    ..while being drunk and relaxed:

    "Well, we in Stasi used to stuff people´s homes and cars with bugs, but we never asked people to pay for it!"

  14. Roger Stenning
    Joke

    OK...

    ...can anyone say "iSole"?

  15. Darryl

    "suggest public toilets to you"

    Wouldn't that require a sensor located, er, a little higher up?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It knows you went to the pub and can detect the fidgety wee dance, so it suggest the nearest approved toilet facility...

  16. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Unauthorized Clothes?

    "In Cupertino style, users would be prevented from putting their sensors on unauthorised clothing. The patent application complained that people were in the habit of removing spy circuits from authorised trainers and putting them in unofficial items. Apple doesn't like that."

    I propose a system of sensors that can freely be relocated to whichever brand or style of clothing you desire. Since this represents new and novel functionality that Apple does not claim, my patent trumps theirs.

    1. bluefoxx

      enobled post

      Go look up the arduino lillypad. Wearable embedded computing is it's shtick. Nobody's gonna try advertising at you through it, while functionality and connectivity is left up to you.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    So...

    Where do the batteries go?

    1. Framitz

      Just follow that thumb!

  18. Gobhicks
    Happy

    Try getting in to a night club...

    ... wearing those "smart garments"...

  19. Gobhicks
    Headmaster

    BTW

    Before getting one's (smart) knickers in a twist, one should look at the actual patent, which cites hundreds of prior art references and has really quite narrow claims....

  20. Skizz
    FAIL

    Weren't patents...

    ...supposed to be for non-obvious inventions? Nothing here that a six year old couldn't dream up.

    Patents need to die!

    1. Oninoshiko

      I agree

      They didn't patent the non-obvious part...

      How they plan on convincing me I actually want this.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...shoe points out nearest bogs"

    ...when feet get wet?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Beware!! Beware!!!

    This wearable computing is of course just a prelude to the inevitable cyber-clothing rebellion! Imagine self-wedgying underwear! Shirts that stimulate your sweat glands while you are out on a date or making a key business presentation!! Pants that heat up male gonads, thereby rendering mankind sterile!! The time to prepare for clothing-optional resistance is now!!!

    I could have gone with the rise of the machines icon, but instead I'll get my coat--but can I do that before my coat gets me???

  23. Keep Refrigerated
    Coat

    You don't *own* music, why should you *own* clothes?

    "In Cupertino style, users would be prevented from putting their sensors on unauthorised clothing. The patent application complained that people were in the habit of removing spy circuits from authorised trainers and putting them in unofficial items. Apple doesn't like that."

    Obviously this is preparing us for the next logical step:- Apple, Microsoft et al are going to start licensing us clothing. Anyone caught wearing unauthorised clothing will be stripped immediately and denied access to all clothing stores. Forget hand-me-downs. Hand-me-downs is piracy: you are not permitted to transfer ownership of our licensed clothes.

    Also, if you want to buy a t-shirt from Microsoft then you can't wear jeans from Apple as they're incompatible, and definitely not make a pair of your own to wear - the t-shirt will fall apart on when you try to put on your home-made jeans. You can buy a t-shirt from Apple, but it's called a straight-jacket, when you put it on they effectively achieve lock-in as you are then unable to free your hands to put on anything else.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Just wait til you see the EULA for those

  24. The Mighty One
    Boffin

    H2G2

    The Shoe Event Horizon can't be far off now.

  25. g e

    Haha the craziness of it all

    Lookout for idiots dressed in faux brushed-aluminium attire

  26. Local Group
    Joke

    But there already is a sensor in my trousers.

    (Local Group blushes.)

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