Ubiquity Inc. is about to bolster medical video compression, wireless communications, and video quality with a set of recently-approved patents.
Ubiquity's new patents join an arsenal of developments and licensing efforts from the company, and are likely to be incorporated into some significant new advances. The video patents are interesting enough alone; Patent Number 9,106,925 B2 reportedly describes the WEAV Video Compression System, a breed of video compression that uses “super compression” in its work. The patent itself details video compression “...by segmentation, transformation, transform encoding, difference encoding and muxing.” This combination allows video to be highly compressed by measuring the “energy difference” between two frames, and allowing similar frames to be replaced by indications rather than actual frame information.
Meanwhile, Patent Number 8,929,434 B2 describes a process where images, or video, from mobile devices are processed to expand images for display on high-definition video screens. The patent further notes that the method can be used to convert from a cell phone into images for “...a high-definition screen display greater than 720i, and at an aspect ratio of 16 x 9”.
As for the last patent, reportedly Patent Number 8,938,535 B2, it's said to describe a Medical Scan Clip-on, a device that can not only scan patients for specific medical points, but also relay the results of those scans elsewhere as needed and potentially even perform the analysis on that itself.
The video patents could be big. We all know how an evening of streaming Netflix can cut into a bandwidth cap, so having a new kind of video compression technology might deliver that same video with less demand on the bandwidth. That's not just valuable in entertainment, either, but also in videoconferencing and similar uses. The improved video from a cell phone, meanwhile, could be helpful in making home theater systems save space, or as a mobile workforce presentation tool.
It's the medical device that could really change things. It could readily allow patients to carry on with recovery post-surgery at home. At-home recovery could reduce hospital expenses, which could lower insurance costs. It could even improve the morale of recovering patients, which can prompt faster healing times and a better overall experience.
Ubiquity's latest line of patents promises exciting new developments in the future, assuming the patents are put to work. Not every patent is ultimately brought to market; Apple has a host of patents that never seem to see the light of day. But the potential contained in these three new patents represents some exciting new opportunity to change our lives for the better.
Edited by
Kyle Piscioniere
