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Google patents safety system that glues pedestrians to cars
- narag 10y agoI can't help imagining someone getting glued to the car and being paraded all around the city :-(
- nobodyshere 10y agoAnd it will likely happen. Drunk drivers won't care.
- RIMR 10y agoImplying that Google's cars will have a driver...
- nobodyshere 10y agoI might have missed that part. First I thought it'd be a solution for traditional vehicles.
- narag 10y agoActually robots and drunk drivers share some traits, like lack of common sense.
- parenthephobia 10y agoThe patent application seems dubious. Under WIPO guidelines "the invention must be disclosed in an application in a manner sufficiently clear and complete to enable it to be replicated by a person with an ordinary level of skill in the relevant technical field." The European Patent Office has a similar rule requiring that it can be "reproducible without undue burden". USPTO says that "the specification must be in clear, full, concise, and exact terms to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains to make and use the same." But as the article says, Google don't actually know what to make the adhesive out of. The patent defines the properties it must have, but presumably no such adhesive exists or they'd know what to make it out of. So, the patent application seems invalid to me. The article also says "of course like many patents, the technology might never materialize," which is entirely at odds with the purpose of patents. One shouldn't, per the rules, be able to get a patent until the technology has materialized.
- willyt 10y agoThey could make it out of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_foam
- a3n 10y ago> Google don't actually know what to make the adhesive out of. The patent defines the properties it must have, but presumably no such adhesive exists or they'd know what to make it out of. So, the patent application seems invalid to me. Yeah, it sounds more like an RFP than a patent app. Why hasn't anyone patented near light speed transportation yet?
- jws 10y agoDeer strikes are going to be ugly.
- Zigurd 10y agoI think you mean tasty
- jws 10y agoDeer strikes are going to be ugly.
- Zigurd 10y agoObviously macabre but probably would save lives. People are injured and killed by deer and other animals coming in through the windshield and subsequently kicking wildly in a panic. Humans are gravely injured by secondary impacts. If this system reduces those occurrences, it will save lives.
- awqrre 10y agoIt could also increase injuries in other instances... think car fires, car hitting walls, car falling down ravines, car flipping, etc...
- Zigurd 10y agoEdge cases are edge cases. There's a lot of data on how people are injured and killed in car/pedestrian collisions. Nor is it a fringe problem. Of the million people who die in collisions every year, half are pedestrians and cyclists.
- RIMR 10y agoEven seatbelts kill people, but we still wear them because it's more likely that you'll be killed by not wearing one.
- awqrre 10y agoYes, if something saves lives doesn't mean that it doesn't cause more death then it saves... the other way around is also true of course...
- sageikosa 10y agoI've bounced at least one deer off my hood (it actually looked like it did a backflip/roll, since I saw all its feet in the air). I'm quite glad it didn't stay there. I took surprisingly no damage from that encounter.
- sageikosa 10y agoVehicular assault coupled with false imprisonment.
- eternalban 10y agoIf you can patent that, then I've got the solution to rubber necking. Who wants to invest? ~;)
- gambiting 10y agoCar has an accident and catches fire - what happens to the pedestrian glued to the bonnet then?