Google patents toys that pay attention to a person and interact with media devices

Google has filed a patent for toys that could recognize pre-recorded voice commands. The toys could also act as a remote control for other media devices.

In the said patent application published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office last Thursday, the "anthropomorphic" device which is in the form of a bear and another rabbit stuffed toy as shown in a diagram, can be arranged to run one or media devices. The toys have microphones in their ears, cameras in their eyes, speakers in their mouths and motors in their necks.

The application's abstract described that once the toy recognizes a gesture such as a hand movement or a spoken word or phrase, it may fix itself on the source of the social cue. Once it receives a voice command, it will transfer it to a media device which will do the instruction being given. The "Agent Interfaces for Interactive Electronics that support social cues", was invented by Richard Wayne de Vaul and Daniel Aminzade. They filed the said patent last February 28, 2012.

A report says this means these toys can hear what other people say, listen for somebody else, respond with pre-recorded phrases and turn a head to make eye contact. They can also communicate wirelessly through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other ways with cloud-based computers or run other media devices at home or in the office as if acting like a remote control.

Moreover, the gadget may also be a doll that looks like a human, animal or a non-living thing. According to a source, they can be installed with face and voice detection so that the device can recognize who they were looking at.

With its business that aims to give users search results of almost anything in the world, Google is set to bring another impossible in the form of the newly patented intelligent toy.