"The Redmond, Washington, software giant on Tuesday received a US patent for a 'method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body.' An application for the patent, No. 6,754, 472, was filed in 2000. It proposes linking portable devices such as watches, keyboards, displays and speakers using the conductivity of 'a body of a living creature', reports IDG News Service.
"In the patent, Microsoft said it set out to address the proliferation of small handheld or wearable devices with redundant parts for input and output of data, such as separate speakers in a watch, a radio and a PDA (personal digital assistant). If all those devices were networked, they could all share one speaker, the company suggested. Personal wireless networks have potential problems involving power consumption, interference and security, and batteries add weight and are inconvenient to replace or recharge, it wrote."
Comment: There has been a lot of work in this area, especially at MIT on the Things That Think project. The Microsoft patent cites earlier patents from MIT, IBM and NTT DoCoMo, among others. It also cites articles in, for example, Popular Mechanics. You can read it at here, though it's a reasonable bet that hardly anyone will bother.
