Google Teddy Bear Plan Combines Science-Fiction With Creepy Realism


If the kids of today are freaked out by Teddy Ruxpin, imagine what the children of tomorrow will think if hi-tech’s biggest house of ideas goes through with plans for the Google teddy bear. A report by Time Magazine indicates that Google filed a patent for an “anthropomorphic device” back in February of 2012 that could be adapted into a doll or toy. Such a product would give a simple child’s toy the kind of human-like qualities that, up to this point, were best depicted in fairy tales and science fiction stories.

BBC News reports that Google’s patent was recently discovered by legal technology firm SmartUp, who described the concept as “one of Google’s creepiest patents yet.”

The Patent Application Publication on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office includes basic sketches of a plush bunny and teddy bear with notes on locations for input and output receptacles as well as “motors” at various points or articulation. The document’s introductory abstract explains that the device would be used in conjunction with “one or more media devices.”

Descriptions of the technology, penned by Google inventors Richard Wayne DeVaul and Daniel Aminzade, seem to bring the sensory and interactive abilities of electronic devices to an unprecedented and hitherto inconceivabale level.

The application itself uses diagrams and lengthy textual explanations to provide the conceptual framework for an anthropomorphic device that would convey expressions of interest, curiosity, and boredom. Contact with the device could be initiated either through verbal cues — such as referring to the device by its name — or by social cues, including eye contact between a person and the device.

In essence, the finished product would ostensibly possess the means to interact with people and its environment much in the way that one might think of a well-trained dog or helper monkey, but without all of the pesky feeding and clean-up.

Google’s Research and Development apparatus, which Fortune has likened to a wing of the Defense Department, is notoriously secretive, protecting its projects from a competitors as well as from the prying eyes of a curious public. True to form, Google declined comment on the notion of a Google teddy bear or similar product.

“We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with,” advised a spokeswoman for Google in a report published by BBC News. “Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications.”

The Google teddy bear isn’t likely to hit store shelves in the near future. Nevertheless, some are understandably alarmed about the implications of the proposal, albeit for a number of decidedly different reasons. Gizmodo muses that the device’s ability to passively collect and store data by constantly monitoring its environment prevents a number of potential issues concerning privacy. But for more imaginative types, visions of rebellious talking toys in shows like The Twilight Zone and films like Poltergeist and Child’s Play are the stuff of some seriously bad mojo. Indeed, if Google can’t make a splash in the toy market with a walking, talking, and grimacing teddy bear, the company might well find a receptive audience with horror movie enthusiasts.

[Image from United States Patent and Trademark Office]

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