Friday, February 6, 2015

Oh, patents! The Petcube camera

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

So you have pets, and when you leave’m at home to go to work, Fluffy chews on your favorite shoes, Tiger gets anxious, and both become couch potatoes; the pet sitter only comes in for an hour, the TV and the radio are hardly interactive, and the webcam makes you nervous, and sends you rushing home every time you see trouble on the screen.

In comes the Petcube camera, connected to your mobile device, which also allows you to talk to your furry friends and to play with them, remotely!  Yes, there is a laser light pointer that you can drag on screen to give your pets some exercise, from a distance! The app also enables you to extract shots of your pets to send them to your friends!

The patent application that discloses the Petcub invention is US2014233906, titled Remote interaction device. The application discloses a device that includes “ a video recorder, an acoustic transducer, a microphone, an antenna for transmitting and receiving data, a processor, a photonic emission device and photonic emission aiming device, and a power supply.” The photonic emission component is a laser light pointer, which you can remotely control. The video camera includes a wide angle (138°) lens to capture the whole room, especially when the Petcube is positioned at a height.

Below, appears the abstract for US2014233906, titled Remote interaction device, with one of the patent figure drawings; and above there are two images of the marketed product with  satisfied furry customers.
  
Systems, devices, and methods are provided for remote interaction with a subject in an environment. The device has audio-visual recording and transmitting functionality to provide an operator at a remote location with an audio-visual feed of the environment near the device. The device also has a light emission component which the operator controls and which projects light onto a surface in the environment in the vicinity of the device. The systems, devices, and methods provide operators with the ability to interact with pets and provide exercise and stimulation to pets when their owners are away.

Hot, hot, hot! A second batch of this device is scheduled to roll out this month! 

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