Month: January 2016

According to a report put together by Thompson Reuters’ Intellectual Property and Science Division, Toyota spent the last couple of years filing hundreds of patents related to autonomous driving. The report said that Toyota’s 1,400 patents outstripped any other automaker or tech company by a factor of two.

The report also noted that automakers in general have more patents related to autonomous vehicles than Silicon Valley companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google do. While that might be surprising considering Google has appeared to lead the charge on self-driving cars, nearly all the major automakers in the US have some sort of autonomous vehicle division or lab at this point, whether they’re working on making fully self-driving cars or just moving to implement automatic braking in newer vehicles. Alphabet, Reuters says, ranks just 26^th on the list of companies with the most patents related to self-driving vehicles.

Still, the number of patents a company has does not necessarily mean that that company will have success in the autonomous driving market. "Non-US companies tend to be more aggressive in filing patent applications than American companies,” Reuters wrote. "The quality of patents is also important, since not all are created equal.”

(credit: Daniel Lee/Flickr)

Just imagine that the whirring noise—from drills and saws cutting into your skull—is the gentle engine-hum of a motorboat, gliding past your canoe as you float in a tranquil lake.

Those may be some of the instructions a cancer patient might hear while in a hypnotic trance during brain surgery.

The technique, which replaces general anesthetics, was used on 37 patients undergoing surgery to remove brain tumors, researchers report in the journal Neurosurgery. Though there's been little science to back up hypnotherapy, the authors conclude that their small study's success suggests hypnosis could be a viable tool to help sedate patients during delicate brain surgery.

(credit: Gabriel Garcia Marengo)

A Maryland lawyer has sued the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), asking that the agency’s new drone registration regulations be overturned.

According to the civil complaint filed December 24, 2015 at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, John Taylor is a "model aircraft hobbyist" who owns "one or more small unmanned hobby aircraft" and intends on acquiring more. He does not describe himself as a drone owner in the brief, nor would he confirm himself as such in a conversation with Ars. However, a profile on DIYDrones.com corresponds to his name and location.

In the case, Taylor asks that the appellate court annul the new registration system that began on December 21. Taylor argues that the new rule is in violation of Section 336 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which states that the agency may not create new rules if such model aircraft are "flown strictly for hobby or recreational use." If he is indeed a drone owner, then the suit would seem to turn on whether the courts consider drones and traditional model aircraft as distinct from one another.