Anyone who’s inclined to think of Google as a bunch of creepy privacy invaders will likely have their suspicions confirmed by a newly revealed patent that shows the creepiest Google product ever created. Per Engadget, Google’s X Labs team has been working on a “smart” teddy bear that can watch your children and respond to things that they say. As an example for how this would work, the patent describes how “the anthropomorphic device may aim its gaze at the source” whenever a child moves and from there it could “express curiosity, may tilt its head, furrow its brow, and/or scratch its head with an arm.”
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In case you’re wondering, the bear in question looks like this:
Because this is Google, the teddy bear would of course have the ability to record kids’ conversations and log their activities. This is why we have a very hard time imagining any sane parent buying one of these for their children, no matter how many promises Google made to not sell information about their children to advertisers.
For its part, Google explains that when it comes to patents, “some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t” and that “prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications.”
In other words, these creepy toys are very unlikely to ever see the light of day.
