The cool part is that the 3D interface would look sort of like a room and you would be able to turn the iPhone or iPad with one hand to access what is on that wall. The idea is that the one-handed adjustment method will let you do other things with one hand and like cook or drive and still navigate the interface.

The idea is that the compass and other motion sensors inside the smartphone would know which way the device is turned and would change what you see on the screen accordingly. That sounds pretty cool; it would make changing apps a snap. The patent app also talked about performing certain motions like shaking the phone to go directly to an app. Given that Apple has thus far eschewed the 3D trend, it’ll be interesting to see if this ever comes to market, or if it’s just a patent for patent’s sake.

[via AppleInsider]

The bump may be a piezoelectric speaker that is normal enough in today’s mobile gadgets. However, it might be made from a space-age material that was used during the Apollo program called Kapton. During the Apollo program, the material was used for insulation on the lunar rover and some was put on the outside of spacesuits as well.

The speaker would have some sort of recessed area on the clip to sit in. That recessed area would apparently help to enhance the speaker sound. The wires used would be flexible as well so they can survive years of clipping and unclipping. Do these tiny iPods even need a speaker? What do you think?

[USPTO via Patently Apple]

The touchscreen apparently has mirrors that bounce beams from an LED and allows the receiver attached at the Wii to interpret movement across the light as positional data. That means whenever you move your finger the character on screen moves.

If you come to a section where you want to use a normal control you just ignore the touchpad section. This is cool, though I wonder what game the touchpad would be ideal for and if this will ever reach market.

[via Siliconera]

Let’s see. When I was thirteen, I cared about getting good grades, obsessed over whether I should grow my hair out or get a boy cut, and surfed the web with prepaid Internet cards (yes, I used to do that, and it feels like ages ago. Which it sort of really is.)

What I wasn’t doing was using the Fibonacci sequence to increase the efficiency of solar panel systems by up to 50%.

However, that was exactly what Aidan Dwyer was doing. Instead of doing what 13-year-old boys normally do (play video games, build LEGO figures, pick their noses, or whatever it is – I wouldn’t know), Aidan was coming up with a new design for the stand that holds solar panels in place.

While hiking up in the Catskills, Aidan glanced up and happened to notice that the trees’ branches form a pattern that can be described by the Fibonacci sequence. This is a sequence of numbers formed by adding the sum of the two previous numbers in the sequence to come up with the next one. (It goes something like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on.)

He constructed his own tree-like stand fitted with small solar panels and noted an increased efficiency of over 50% with his design. Aidan now holds a provisional U.S. patent for his solar panel stand re-design, which already has some interested parties eager to put his design into action.

[via Ubergizmo via Geeky Gadgets]

This was the first video game to try to get a patent and took up most of a living room. The game had a giant CRT screen that had knobs that the player could use to control the velocity and direction of a dot on screen. The dot was supposed to represent a missile in flight. The concept was based on radar that was used by the military in WWII to control missiles.

The patent was field on the game on January 25 1947. The score for the game was kept by hand. Apparently, it never went into production, and Eventually the technology Goldsmith and Mann developed was used in the mainframe computers of the day. It wouldn’t be until 1958 when Tennis for Two emerged, and eventually the first commercial video game – Computer Space debuted in 1971.

[via gizmag]

Despite the fact that Zenith had been working on actual wireless remotes since the 1950s, U.S. Patent 3962748 provided for a rudimentary device which allowed you to change the channel without getting your La-Z-Ass out of your La-Z-Boy. The pole had a special attachment on the end to simply let you rotate the channel knob from across the room. I’m surprised there wasn’t an attachment to fetch a beer from the fridge too.

[via Futility Closet via Boing Boing]

Apple has filed a patent app for a new battery that is the same physical size as existing batteries, but has a longer usable life and more power inside. The patent app is called, “Increasing Energy Density in Rechargeable Lithium Battery Cells.” The app outlines a way to charge a battery using what Apple calls “multi-step constant-current constant-voltage (CC-CV) charging technique.”

Apple would use the CC-CV technique to allow the thickness of the anode active material in the battery to be increase in volumetric and gravimetric density. Using a charging process that uses less current when the battery is more charged would also prevent the battery usable life from being shortened due to heat. The app was filed back in 2009, and there is no word on when or if the tech will find its way into notebooks and other gear.

[via Apple Insider]

Before we get to the bad news, let’s look at the Circboard in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Now for the ugly part: another Redditor by the name of huevos found a patent, filed by Douglas Naimo in 2007, for a similar software. You can read the full patent here. Here are the incriminating figures from the patent:

I’m pretty sure Naimo will want to know more about the Circboard. Perhaps this is the time for him to step up and turn his idea into a real product. At least it wasn’t Microsoft or Sony who have the patent, otherwise it’ll be console-exclusive.

[via Circboard & Reddit via Joystiq]

Thomas Cane’s 1996 patent for a Santa Claus Detector doesn’t actually sense for the presence of the jolly old chap, but it’s designed to light up when an object is placed inside the stocking. Actually, it doesn’t even really do that. There’s ribbon tied to the toe of the stocking that Santa would presumably pull when he delivers your prezzies.

Of course, the biggest flaw in the design is that it can’t detect if there’s a lump of coal inside, in lieu of a real present.

I’m not really sure what’s going on in Figure 5 from the patent diagrams, but it made me laugh, so I nabbed a copy of it:

[via Futility Closet via Nag on the Lake]

Patented by Ann Margaret Zaleski way back in 1973, this dog-shaped vacuum was supposed to help your scaredy pup cope with the stress of you vacuuming up their hair when being groomed by hiding a Suck-o-Lux inside a doggie doppelganger. Yep. Brilliant. Of course, most dogs would look at this thing and cower in the corner, bark at the thing, or immediately start humping it. Maybe that’s why it never made it to market. Or maybe it was just ahead of its time, and we’ll be able to buy one in 2011.

According to its inventor, “It will be readily obvious that other shapes of dogs, not shown, may be used instead, preferably one to correspond to the particular type dog to be groomed so that he will feel more friendly toward it. Of course, cats or other pets may be similarly simulated in the toy animal configuration. Thus it will be seen that I have provided a novel combination and arrangement of a toy animal, such as a dog, and vacuum cleaner and blower for completely concealing and muffling the noises of a vacuum cleaner and blower within the confines of the body of a toy animal.”

Damn, and I was going to patent a cat-shaped vacuum and an iguana-shaped one too. Stupid patent trolls. I swear.

[via Nag on the Lake]

Lots of ultraportable notebooks on the market have carbon fiber in their construction, so this isn’t that far out in the least. The patent outlines a new outer shell for the tablet that uses “layered fiber in matrix type material.”

I think it would be epic if Apple took the iPad, made it in carbon fiber, and then left the fiber exposed for all to see. I would hope they use the cool looking carbon fiber, not the flat and ugly looking dry carbon fiber. Carbon fiber can break in some uses so Apple would apparently use a frame made from CF to strengthen the works.

A new patent app has turned up that shows Apple is at least considering bringing the MagSafe connector to the future iPad and iPhone models. The MagSafe power adapter that the notebooks use only changes, and since the iPhone and iPad charge and sync through the charge port, the MagSafe adapter would need to be tweaked to handle this.

I would assume Apple could do that without much of an issue. The downside is that a change to this type of connector on the portable devices would mean no compatibility with existing accessories.

[via Cult of Mac]

The DIY hack had the motor hanging off the back, which wasn’t pretty. Thankfully, Nike’s version appears to be much more like what Marty McFly wore. They recently applied for a patent for auto-lacing shoes, which can only mean that these shoes may some day become a reality.

As many sneaker enthusiasts will tell you, the Marty McFly Nikes are vintage gold, so a fully functioning pair with power laces will be super cool.

[via Nike Kicks]

The patent app has some line art that shows a method of using touch on the front and back of a tablet for gestures. That means you could hold the device with two hands naturally and use fingers on the front and back to rotate or pinch for gestures.

It’s also pretty cool because if you could control all of a page you are looking at from the back you could keep streaks and smears off the front of your tablet. There is no word on when or if the input system will make it to a real product.

[via Electronista]

Apple has a new idea for allowing a user to log into future iPhones using biometric sensors that is interesting. The patent app for the feature has surfaced and shows sensors in the iPhone case that would read the users heart rhythm when they pick up the phone.

These heart readings can be used to identify the user and allow them access to the iPhone if approved. There is little info on exactly how the user would be identified, but this is a cool idea assuming it works.

[Via UnwiredView]

You can check out the full details at the USPTO‘s website, but here’s the short version: it’s a touch screen steering wheel, apparently for a portable gaming device, as shown in the above sketches. It may be controlled using either a stylus or fingers. It may have support for vibration. The steering’s sensitivity may be adjustable.

If you ask me, I think a stylus-controlled steering wheel is a dumb, dumb, DUMB idea. The whole point of the interface is to make a driving game more “natural”; why add it if you’re going to gimp it with a mediating tool, i.e. the stylus? But as I said, I’ve never used a DS, so maybe I’m wrong.

[via Go Rumors via Gadgetizer]

TiVo has now been granted a patent that may mean the death of one of the most important features on any DVR. The TiVo patent covers the company’s Season Pass software that resides on its DVRs. What the patent really covers is any system that allows the DVR to resolve conflicts when scheduled recordings overlap.

Without that software, the DVR would not know what shows to record and what show to skip. TiVo is a big fan of suing anyone who treads close to one of its patents so expect wide scale suits to be filed any day now since every DVR on the globe has this feature. A reported workaround may be to put the scheduling software on a remote server somewhere since the patent is for client side software only.

[via DavisFreeberg.com]

The machine takes advantage of the fact that patents often refer to other (or earlier) patents to connect the words that it got from the book. I’m not 100% sure but I think this is how it works: if for example the first two words that the machine got from a book are “fox” and then “dog”, the machine will first look for a patent with a drawing of a fox. But before looking for a drawing of a dog, it looks for a third patent drawing that will connect the fox-patent to the dog-patent. Then it draws the fox, then the connection between the fox and the dog – a patent for a foxdog? – and then the dog.

In essence, it turns a text-based story into a technological history of sorts. Here’s the Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Honestly I found it to be a bit boring. Maybe if I knew exactly which “recent best-selling book” it started from I could appreciate the drawings more. Or maybe I should see it live. As it is, I don’t have context, and the drawings make little to no sense to me. Definitely weird though.

[via likecool]

If you can take that cartoon television seriously, you’re a better person than I.

The football controller is designed to assist in a real-world football experience. This means throwing (except not really, because we know what happens when you throw your Wii remote around a television) and running (except not really, because there’s no room in your house with all the Wii accessories), and your motion is picked up by the controller, which is tucked safely inside the squishy football accessory.

it could be fun. Rock Band sounded a little silly at first, too (to me, anyway). But how many controller add-ons do we really need?

[via Siliconera]

SCEA recently filed the patent for emotion and reaction tracking–a concept that has promise, of course, but sounds hilarious on paper, particularly when coupled with these diagrams (Ha Ha Ha) and their example of two dudes high-fiving when extolling the types of group interaction the device could read. I can see it now: one guy high fives his bro after scoring a sweet basket, and the virtual crowd erupts in cheers. Sure, it works. I guess.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the patent is that this software can be applied to all sorts of media… movies, television shows, whatever. Kinda puts the Nielsens to shame when your machine can read whether or not you’re paying attention to what you’re watching.

None of this really means anything yet, but the next few years will be interesting, as the gaming companies scramble to create crazy artificial intelligences that will destroy us all.

[Siliconera via The Escapist]