Shmuel Ur

Inventor & Software Engineer

Shorashim, Israel

“I learned about Intellectual Ventures from a friend in Seattle, and I wanted to participate and be able to invent in new fields.”

Master Inventor Joins Intellectual Ventures' International Network

During Dr. Shmuel Ur's nearly two decades of working in Israel for a major international technology company, his business cards read Master Inventor. He focused on software and hardware engineering and how to make programs work correctly. These days, he's a full-time independent inventor with more than 25 granted patents to his name, and he consults and invents for start-ups in order to help them build valuable IP portfolios.

Ur belongs to Intellectual Ventures' international network of more than 3,000 inventors from universities, institutions, governments and other invention-related organizations. He has submitted many inventions to Intellectual Ventures in areas such as guiding the visually impaired, augmented reality, gaming, privacy and social networks. He draws inspiration from unlikely places in order to solve problems and invent solutions.

Finding Inspiration for Invention in Unlikely Places

Upon leaving his engineering job, Ur began a new career as an independent inventor. He enjoys the freedom to think creatively and solve problems that are completely different from anything he had previously done in his career. "I learned about Intellectual Ventures from a friend in Seattle, and I wanted to participate and be able to invent in new fields," says Ur. As an independent inventor, he now has the freedom to use his various hobbies as inspiration for invention.

One of Ur's passions is Argentine tango, and he set himself a challenge to incorporate that into an invention. It occurred to him that the principles of dance – the concept of one person leading another through movement – could be married with technology to help blind people navigate to unfamiliar locations. Ur knew that if you are blind or visually-impaired you can use a cane or a guide dog to help you navigate. But he discovered that guide dog training costs tens of thousands of dollars and the animals are in their prime for only six years or so, and traveling somewhere new, even with a cane, can be overwhelming for someone with visual impairment. A blind person he worked with asked him, "Why would I need to travel to a place I have never been before?"

Unlocking New Frontiers for the Visually-Impaired

"Could I develop a more technologically-advanced solution using the tango as inspiration?" Ur wondered as he began this project. An effortless-looking tango depends on the leader indicating a change in direction or movement for his partner through weight shifts and small pressures on the hand or small of the back. Ur developed a methodology to indicate, through small pressures on both hips, when a blind person should move forward, turn and stop walking.

Ur decided to use technology that has become commonplace these days – GPS, accelerometers and the vibration system used in mobile phones – to translate that methodology into a functioning prototype. As a blind person walks, an accelerometer and vibration system creates those small pressures on the hips as dictated by a GPS navigation system. Only time will tell if this invention will succeed in changing the way blind people navigate the world, but it's clear that ideas like these, and the inventors who conceive of them, have the power to improve our lives.