For a man with a 65,000 square foot house, picture hanging could be a hassle. So Bill Gates has patented a method for doing it electronically - and it has applications beyond his abode
What do you give the man who has everything for Christmas? Something simple like a nice picture frame is always a good fallback or, if he"s a geek, an electronic picture frame might work.
A patent assigned on Tuesday to William H Gates III, the richest man in the world, gives the rights over a system for electronically distributing art around buildings. US patent number 6,670,934 describes a hierarchical representation of spaces within an environment, in which each space can be further subdivided into subspaces
It"s a system that is likely to be a must-have in a 66,000 square foot house such as the one Bill Gates had built for himself in Medina, a wealthy enclave near Seattle, in the late 1990s. With miles of fibre optic cable linking servers to lighting, music, and climate controls throughout the complex, the ability to control which electronic picture hangs above the 24-seat formal dining table should not be overlooked.