Tag: Patents

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Amazon seeks patent for autonomous ground vehicle

Autonomous ground vehicle
A diagram shows the configuration for an autonomous ground vehicle with two compartments. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

Is a robotic retriever in your future?

Amazon thinks so: In a patent application published today, inventors working for the Seattle-based online retailer lay out a detailed plan for an autonomous ground vehicle that can roll out from someone’s home, pick up a package from a delivery truck and bring it to the right place.

The boxy robot depicted in the 2016 application looks a lot like the delivery robot that Starship Technologies has built for delivering meals on wheels. But the AGV’s intended function is more of a throwback to the 1950s idyll in which the family dog fetches the newspaper and lays it at its master’s slippered feet.

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Robo-tailor could follow glow-in-the-dark guidance

Apparel manufacturing machine
An illustration shows how an apparel manufacturing machine could make use of fluorescent ink printing and ultraviolet light to guide a customized cutting process. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

Amazon has taken one more conceptual step toward an integrated system that can size up fashion customers and sell them tailor-made clothing.

The latest advance comes in the form of a patent published today, describing a system that could use fluorescent inks as a guide for cutting fabric. The inks would be invisible under normal lighting, but when the fabric is illuminated with ultraviolet light, “the fluorescent reflection can be captured by image sensors to generate instructions to cut the panels out from the textile sheet.”

“The reflection can also be used as assembly notations for reference by sewing workers or automated sewing systems,” Amazon inventor Rouzbeh Safavi Aminpour says in the patent application, which was filed back in 2016.

Aminpour was in on a previously issued patent that lays out an assembly-line system of computer-controlled printers, cutters and sewing stations for producing on-demand apparel.

The beauty of the system is that the cutting guides and assembly instructions can be custom-printed on the fabric to reflect the eventual wearer’s size and fit. Other inks could be printed onto the fabric at the same time, to reflect the wearer’s desired color pattern for the fabric.

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Amazon wins patent for 3-D printing on demand

It’s been a long time coming, but today Amazon can say it holds the patent for a retailing system that can take custom orders for 3-D printed items, get them made, and have them sent out for delivery or picked up by the customer.

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Blended-reality mirror shows off virtual clothes

Amazon mirror
A diagram shows how Amazon’s blended-reality mirror could put an observer into a virtual scene. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

How would that glitzy cocktail dress look on you when you’re on the dance floor at the GeekWire Gala? Now Amazon has a patented technology for that: a blended-reality display that puts your image into a virtual scene, and puts you in a virtual version of the dress.

The magic mirror would be a step up from Amazon’s Echo Look camera, which is currently being marketed on an invitation-only basis as a fashion “style assistant.”

Echo Look lets you take your picture with the assistance of Amazon’s voice-commanded Alexa AI assistant, and then produces blended-reality photos that show you wearing the clothes you’ve picked out.

The blended-reality display, described in a patent published today, relies on a system of cameras, projectors, displays, mirrors and lights that can add layers of pixels to your moving image on a real-time basis.

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Why Amazon patented a self-destruct drone

Drone fragmentation
A diagram shows how a delivery drone might manage its own controlled fragmentation if it encounters problems during its trip. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

Most inventors look for ways to make their machines more robust, but Amazon has won a patent for delivery drones that fall apart more easily.

Why? For safety reasons.

The patent application, filed last year and published last week, lays out a concept that calls for an automated “fragmentation controller” to be included on the drone.

That controller, analogous to a flight controller, works out and updates a backup plan for breaking the drone apart if the flight is disrupted for some reason.

As the drone goes about its business, onboard systems and the drone fleet’s mission control center would be on the watch for potentially hazardous conditions, such as inclement weather or equipment malfunctions.

If the drone gets into a jam, the fragmentation controller could be activated to go through an optimized self-destruct sequence. Pieces of hardware would drop off or be ejected based on the terrain that’s surrounding the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, when it gets into trouble.

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Tribe sues Amazon and Microsoft in patent spat

Supercomputer
A supercomputer hums at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. (NASA Photo / Bill Hrybyk)

A Native American tribe and a small computer company have reportedly sued Amazon and Microsoft, claiming that they’re infringing on patents relating to supercomputer technology.

The lawsuits are the latest twists in a relatively new strategy under which companies assign patents to tribes that can in turn assert sovereign immunity to short-circuit review procedures.

Reuters and CNBC reported that the suits were filed today in federal district court in Virginia by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and SRC Labs. SRC, a company founded in 1996 by the late supercomputer pioneer Seymour R. Cray, assigned the patents in question to the tribe in August.

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ID authentication scheme uses music as the key

Close Encounters
In “Close Encounters of Third Kind,” Francois Truffaut plays a UFO researcher who uses music as an authentication tool for the aliens. (Columbia / EMI via YouTube)

Amazon’s inventors have come up with a computer-based system that makes use musical transformations to authenticate a whole group of users — and block access if anyone strikes a false note.

The concept, which is called chained authentication using musical transforms, is the subject of a patent that was sought back in 2014 and published today.

Here’s how it could work: When a pre-specified group requests access to protected data, the computer service holding that data sends out a “musical seed” to the first user on the group’s list. This seed can be an actual melody, or it can be a series of seemingly garbled tones.

The first user runs the tones through a transformation — for example, changing notes from sharps to flats, or bringing the melody down a fifth. Different users apply their own assigned algorithms to twist and turn the melody, and the last user on the list sends the audio file back to the service for authentication.

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Amazon and Walmart plan airships for drones

Amazon drone airships
Amazon’s newly published patent envisions a fleet of airships that would monitor delivery drones. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

We already know about Amazon’s concept for airship warehouses to support drone deliveries, but here’s a new twist: Now the Seattle-based retailing giant has received a patent for another airship application, aimed at keeping track of drones as they go about their business.

And there’s yet another twist: That other retailing giant, Walmart, has its own plans for airship warehouses.

Amazon’s concept – known as an airborne monitoring station, or AMS – is described in a patent application that was filed two years ago and published today.

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Augmented-reality shopping on your phone?

Augmented-reality concept
An augmented-reality shopping app could provide a realistic-looking view of a virtual wristwatch on your smartphone, complete with bling. (GeekWire Photoillustration / Alan Boyle)

It’s no secret that Amazon is intrigued by the potential applications of augmented reality for e-commerce – and one of those applications is explored in a newly published patent.

Imagine that you’re shopping online for a classy watch or bracelet, and you want to get a sense for how it’ll look around your wrist. Just point your smartphone camera at your hand, and an augmented-reality app will show you the item superimposed on the camera video.

But what about the bling? The patent published today, based on an application filed back in 2013, focuses on how to add the sparkle to the virtual image of the bracelet.

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Amazon patents a power-charging robot

Robot charger
A diagram from Amazon’s patent application shows a power-charging robot offering a charging cable and a stick of gum for sale. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

Have you ever scrambled around at an airport, hunting down a power outlet for your laptop or smartphone? Amazon’s inventors have the answer: a power-charging robot that’ll come to your side and let you plug in, for a price.

It’ll even sell you chewing gum.

The robot is the subject of a patent published today, which is based on an application filed by a Seattle-based Amazon team back in 2015.

The idea may seem wacky, but the inventors contend that such robots would fill a need that’s currently unmet.

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