| osed125 said: Man, lots of rumors about the next xbox recently, maybe MS will announce the system before E3? I guess that's possible. |
Well, watching patents is proving interesting. While there's a LOT of stuff that would put even the biggest geek to sleep, there are others that are extremely...enlightening.
For instance there are a number of patents related to Microsoft's Xbox TV service. Patents on how to manage advertising programs, insert localized audio into a stream (i.e. stream video with an audio stream based on the location, provide a guide for content, etc. In addition there have been some indicators that Microsoft has been working on a social network, however these may be related to their aquisition of a social network service for businesses. Lastly, there have been a ton of patents related to Skype or products that could work with Skype.
And those are just the ones that interested me. Microsoft receives 100 or more patents per week. Not to most, but a high number of patents. It ends up being a lot of stuff to read, try to understand the functionality, then try to understand how it would fit into one or more product lines, if any. Some of the iconography they patent, I'm not sure where it works. In one specific example, there is a new icon I've never seen used in the electronics industry. Have no idea what the importance of it is.
One of the more interesting recent patents was for a see-thru LCD display, either that or it's a dual display with a front and back display through a single LCD.
As for the ones I've labeled Xbox 8 specific, I think some of them have been applied to the Xbox 360, just not yet seen in an available product. Others are definitely NOT a part of the current Xbox 360, but could be planned for an update which the Xbox 8 would share. As an example, there is a patent for the UI that is not currently used in the UI.
Lastly, a patent doesn't mean it'll be use in a product. The above animated splash screen as an example. If intended for the Xbox 8, it could still see some design changes between now and the release, and we might not see the related patent for it approved until the console gets released. That seems to be key with a lot of approved patents, they seem to release in time for a product released.
Sony's patents have proven much dryer than even Microsoft's. So dry that I got a nosebleed from the low humidity. Microsoft's research is very high level, where as Sony's is very much low level. I have to really go through Sony's, it was just 2 AM the last time I tried, and at 2AM reading the technical details of a new capaciter design would put anyone to sleep.
