PATENT DROP: Ford shares the power
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PATENT DROP: Ford shares the power
Plus: Apple’s smooth ride; JPMorgan Chase gets rid of the toxic
Happy Monday and welcome to Patent Drop!
Today, we’re tackling a patent from Ford for EVs that give back during a power outage; tech from Apple for better sound on the road; and a filing from JPMorgan Chase for toxic-free cybersecurity.
Let's dive in.
#1. Ford gives back
Ford wants its cars to share their power.
The company is seeking to patent a system that can strategically ration energy from an electric vehicle for “supporting household loads during power outages.” Ford’s system coordinates “bidirectional energy transfer events” between EVs and households or other structures.
Energy is rationed from the car to the home in waves, rather than just a constant flow that burns through the car’s energy quickly. Ford noted this strategy is “in order to extend appliance operation for the duration of power outage conditions.”
This system is run by a cloud-based control module that’s connected to the vehicle’s traction battery pack. When deciding how to ration an EV’s energy, this system takes several factors into account: it considers a home or structure’s total energy requirement, how much energy the car has to offer, and a user’s pre-set individual preferences.
But this system also considers what Ford calls a “power outage restoration estimate,” which can be derived from either a “cloud-generated power outage map” connected to the system’s control module, or an “announcement from a grid data server.”
Ford also details a few ways that this system can ration power. In one example, depending on the factors above, this system may choose four levels of rationing to transmit: a low rationed strategy level, a minor rationed strategy level, a major rationed strategy level, and a critical rationed strategy level. In another example, the system uses a “cycle/timer” based approach, which doles out power to the home based on simple time intervals. In another, rationing relies on an “appliance communication” approach, in which the system transfers energy based on “direct communications between the control module and smart household appliances.”
As EV adoption ramps up, so does the potential strain on the US power grid. This can be alleviated with EV owners being conscious of when they’re charging, said Adam Maxwell, director of utilities and markets at clean energy parking and mobility company Flash. Effective load management tactics, like charging at night when there’s minimal demand on the power grid, can help prevent overload, he said.
Utility companies can aid in this by implementing “Time of Use” programs, Maxwell added. “EVs can be charged in a collective fashion with minimal strain on the grid.”
Ford’s patent could help solve another threat to the grid: Breakdowns occurring amid worsening climate change. As global warming-induced extreme weather events that the grid isn’t built to handle continue to rise, power outages as a result are becoming more common. Finding a way for EVs to give power to the households they charge in could offer a major lifeline during a hurricane or heatwave.
Plus, tech like this could take the place of generators, which tend to emit pollutants and are not environmentally friendly, said Maxwell.
EVs with bidirectional power capabilities do exist, but are not available commercially or at any large scale, said Maxwell. Though much of the work in bidirectional charging is “disparate and disjointed” and done in a piecemeal way, a major manufacturer like Ford showing an interest in this type of tech is a “very positive step in the right direction,” he noted.
“What we're striving towards as an industry is that vehicle-to-grid capability, because it can enable so many positives for our electric system and our electric grid,” he said.
Ford hasn’t been shy about its EV goals. The company aims to manufacture EVs at a run rate of 600,000 vehicles by the end of 2023 and 2 million by the end of 2026. It has also sought patents for tons of EV-related innovations, including an EV charging reservation system, a hydrogen-powered vehicle, and a heat pump system. Given the company’s commitments, a patent like this is no surprise.
#2. “Hey Siri, play Car Seat Headrest”
Apple may have added another piece to the puzzle of its rumored Apple Car.
The company filed a patent application for a “user tracking” seat headrest for better audio control. In the filing, Apple describes a headrest with “one or more speakers” mounted into it, to provide the occupant with better audio output. However, this tech essentially applies spatial audio to a headrest, a concept seen in a host of different Apple devices thus far.
This headrest takes into account the placement of “the occupant’s head and/or ears” by tracking their location and movement within an “enclosed environment,” relying on cameras and sensors to do so. The audio is then modified based on a user’s movement, as the “movement of the user's head and/or ears can have a noticeable effect on the acoustic experience of the user,” Apple said.
Apple noted that these headrests can help provide personalized audio experiences “intended only for the occupant of the seat,” and offer an “ambience channel” to the user.
One other note to consider: While Apple didn’t explicitly say that this headrest is for a car seat, the company said that this tech can be implemented in a “stationary apparatus,” such as a conference room or other type of room, or a “moveable apparatus,” including vehicles like a train car, an airplane, an autonomous vehicle, a boat, a ship or a helicopter.
Apple has been working on the Apple Car, reportedly called Project Titan, since 2014. The company has filed for more than 200 patents for tech related to the not-yet-real vehicle, including for physical components like windows, seats and suspensions, as well as for high-tech security systems and autonomous capabilities. The company reportedly aims to launch the vehicle by 2026, and plans to price it at less than $100,000.
Given that Apple’s go-to is high-end (and higher price point) products, the Apple Car would likely be marketed as a premium or luxury vehicle, said Bob Bilbruck, CEO of consulting firm Captjur. Once Apple Cars hit the roads, the first drivers will likely be the die-hard fans of the company, he said, similar to the initial audience for the launch of the Vision Pro.
“I would say it's going to be a premium product, just like all the other products,” said Bilbruck. “I'm assuming you’ll see some pretty dedicated Apple people at first that will pay up for the features and functions they want, maybe more so than anything that Tesla, Ford, Chevy or Dodge brings out.”
For this tech specifically, Bilbruck noted that it could hit the market sooner than the Apple Car itself. The company could license this tech to other carmakers that want to offer top-of-the-line audio experiences, similar to how Apple CarPlay is integrated into hundreds of different models of vehicles. But at the end of the day, Apple likes to “own the ecosystems that feed into those products,” said Bilbruck, so whatever Apple-based vehicle features hit the proverbial shelves before launch would likely just be a peek at what’s to come.
With no cars on the road – or even an official announcement – whether the Apple Car will find success is yet to be seen. But the company does have a few things going for it, Bilbruck said, should it enter the automotive arena. For one, the company already has hundreds of physical storefronts to sell its vehicles, making deployment as easy as making space for a car in a showroom, he said.
But more importantly, the company has a consistent track record of putting out products that people trust, and a built-in audience of dedicated “early adopters” that “wouldn't have any problem with taking a risk on a new product,” said Bilbruck.
“Some companies aren't that dependable, but Apple really is,” he added. “Everything they bring out is really quite bulletproof from the get-go on a new product introduction.”
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#3. JPMorgan’s toxicity purge
JPMorgan Chase is not a fan of Brittany Spears, apparently.
The financial institution is seeking to patent a system to automate detection, elimination and prevention of “toxic combinations for personal information data” — essentially two or more pieces of personal information that, when paired together, become highly confidential, such as a name and an account number.
“When certain types of PI [personal information] are combined, the classification of that information may increase, even though the individual parts of the combination may be public by themselves,” the company noted in its filing.
While this patent is fairly broad, JPMorgan describes a scanning tool that uses one or more “rulesets" configured to identify toxic combinations of personal information in a database or computer code, continuously scanning to flag anything that could be dangerous. If the system flags anything, it notifies the user who performed the scan via an email or other notification, and presents the results of the scan through a user interface.
Because different personal information has different levels of risk (for example, personal information may be classified as “public, internal, confidential, and highly confidential), the user also gets a “degree of confidentiality” of the toxic combinations in the dataset.
The company noted that this tool can perform scans on code or databases in both “development and deployment phases” of an application. The rulesets of this scanner are also continuously updated with the latest organizational or legal policies regarding different types of personal information, as “many applications and programs do not follow organization guidance on toxic combinations and unknowingly expose PI to the public through these toxic combinations.”
As a company that processes millions of transactions an hour and deals with millions of pieces of personal data, adding any new layer of cybersecurity isn’t a bad thing. Plus, if patented, JPMorgan could easily license this tech out to other financial institutions, adding financial cybersecurity to its software toolkit.
The issue of “toxic twins” is a prevalent one in the data security tech field. The fact that a financial institution like JPMorgan is working on tackling this issue is itself a benefit, said Ari Weil, VP of marketing at data security firm Cyera.
“If (JPMorgan) can get the technology and approach right, It's going to help them and probably other banks that they would license the software to become a lot more private and a lot more secure overall,” Weil said.
But the problem is that the technology JPMorgan lays out is, frankly, quite vague. One hitch: There are a lot of potential toxic combinations to identify. A ruleset-based scanner, as this patent suggests, tends to look for individual pieces of personal information. “Trying to figure out combinations requires a lot more logic, and also a lot more combinations,” said Weil.
Because of this, a method that relies on simple rules and pattern matching may lead to a host of different problems, including user-end latency and false positives and negatives.
“People scrunch up their faces at AI and machine learning, but the fact of the matter is … a human defining all the rules is just not going to get all the combinations,” Weil said.
The patent itself doesn't go too in depth about how exactly JPMorgan’s scanner will work, said Weil. But if the company decides to implement AI that can rapidly identify toxic pairs, the scanner may have a chance of working correctly.
“The pro [case] is that something like this is really needed,” said Weil. “The way that they choose to implement it is to-be-determined. The question with a patent like this is ultimately going to be where does this evolve to?’”
Extra Drops
If you’re still here, we have a few more fun ones for you.
EBay wants to understand emojis. The company is seeking to patent “emoji understanding of online experiences,” which essentially uses AI to understand an emoji in the context of a piece of text or listing.
Microsoft wants to make sure everyone feels included. The company wants to patent a system for “meeting inclusion and hybrid workplace insights,” which tracks “inclusivity metrics” for both in-person and remote meeting attendees.
Meta wants to listen to your heart. The company is seeking to patent an in-ear device for “monitoring cardiac activity.” Why? Great question.
What else is new?
As Threads surpasses 100 million users, Twitter traffic is tumbling. The app’s user activity dropped 11% compared to the same days last year.
The personal health data of 11 million HCA Healthcare patients was exposed in an online forum, including names, emails, phone numbers, birth dates and appointment information.
Lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering a ban on buying and selling location data. The bill, called the Location Shield Act, would be the first of its kind in the U.S.
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