Microsoft wants your body!

June 25th, 2004

Via the MIT Technology Review: Microsoft has patented the use of human skin to transmit electrical signals and power in United States Patent 6,754,472 :Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body.

Basically this is to allow your PDA in one hand dial your cell phone in the other. How this is supposed to reduce the “redundancy of carrying multiple mobile devices,” I don’t know, or why it would even be necessary as cellphones and PDA are already on their way to melding into one devise, complete with digital camera and internet access. As for the other obvious observation on this patent, I think Mara E Vatz summed it up nicely:

This concept reminds me of a process most people used to useŃwhich involved storing a phone number in our mind, transmitting it via the nervous system to our hand (either one!), and dialing the phone ourselves.

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