Microsoft’s proposed ‘AI backpack’ is a dumb, fun idea

We’ve had AI assistants in good audio system, telephones, TVs, and even vehicles. But in your backpack? This is new territory, and Microsoft is staking out a declare by way of a new patent.

As noticed by Neowin, the patent in query was filed on May 2. “The description relates to artificial intelligence assisted wearables, such as backpacks,” the patent reads. “An example backpack may include sensors, such as a microphone and a camera. The backpack may receive a contextual voice command from a user.”

The patent goes on to point out a quite jaunty skier contemplating going off path, and the backpack advising him to not. The patent additionally exhibits a variety of sensors, together with a digicam and a microphone, embedded within the straps of the backpack. It’s a good idea, on condition that the situation of the sensors would naturally “point” to what’s in entrance of the person. Like many AI companies, Microsoft means that the AI backpack would hook up with the cloud, passing data backwards and forwards and informing the person.

Take a step again, although, and the query suggests itself: Why? We reside in a world of health bands and smartwatches and, nicely, telephones, with sensors galore in-built and chronic connections to the cloud, assuming there’s a mobile connection. It doesn’t appear out of the bounds of chance that a backpack producer might embrace an emergency satellite tv for pc connection in case of an emergency within the backcountry, for instance, because the Apple iPhone does. And sure, there’s the comfort issue of a skier not needing to take away his gloves, fish out his cellphone, and snap a image of the path in query. Still.

Let’s face it: Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in wearables. The Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2 had been arguably forward of their time, debuting nearly a decade in the past alongside the primary iterations of Google’s Wear OS and the LG G Watch and Samsung’s Gear Live. To be honest, each platforms struggled at first till the Apple Watch debut in 2015 gave the platform legitimacy. Still, about a decade later, the Apple Watch and the Android ecosystem of watches reside on; Microsoft discontinued the Band in 2016 and provided refunds in 2019. Though clunky, the Band platform provided each very good health monitoring (together with sleep and even an altimeter sensor for stair climbing) in addition to integration with Microsoft’s Office apps.

And let’s face it: Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in telephones. After struggling to search out a marketplace for its Lumia and Windows 10 Mobile platforms, Microsoft killed Windows 10 Mobile in 2019.

And let’s face it (you get the idea): Microsoft hasn’t had a lot luck in AI assistants, both. Microsoft’s partnership with Harman Kardon for the Invoke good speaker died in 2021, as the corporate pulled help for its Cortana AI assistant. In Windows, Microsoft moved from making Cortana its flagship app for Windows 10 to migrating it to a dumb app in Windows 11 to unceremoniously killing Cortana this summer time.

What this all means, then, is that there are only a few merchandise and functions that Microsoft hasn’t tried placing AI into, with out later giving up on the entire thing. Backpacks? Sure, why not? Patents being patents, there’s completely no assure that you simply’ll see a Surface AI backpack ever. But why shouldn’t Microsoft strive it out?

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor