Jan 26 2010
By
admin | Filled under:
energy
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today published several new patent applications from Apple, revealing research into several areas, including the use of gesture-based input devices and IBM Thinkpad X61 Battery solar panel technology in the casings of iPods.
In the first application, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Processing Combinations of Kinematical Inputs”, Apple describes the use of force and velocity sensors included in an input device such as a mouse to record gestures, which can then be interpreted as input by a IBM Thinkpad X61S Battery computer.
Some embodiments of the present invention therefore enable a user to provide a series of gestures as input to the receiving device. Such gestures may include, for example, brushing motions, scooping motions, nudges, tilt and slides, and tilt and taps. The Lenovo thinkpad x200 battery application can then respond to each gesture (or gesture combination) in any number of ways.
Embodiments of the present invention may therefore have applicability to any electronic system or application IBM 40Y7003 capable of receiving input. For example, embodiments of the present invention may be useful with video games, file browsing, interactive navigation, communication systems, control systems, military systems, medical devices, and industrial applications.
The patent application, which was filed on July 18, 2008, is credited solely to Apple engineer Omar Leung.
The second application, entitled ” IBM ThinkPad X60 Battery Power Management Circuitry and Solar Cells”, describes a power management system that would allow portable media devices such as the iPod and iPhone to operate primarily on solar power.
The details of the application describe methods for integrating both solar and IBM ThinkPad X60S Battery power sources, using switches to reconfigure sections of solar cells on the exterior of the device such that a constant voltage is generated even if certain solar cells are obstructed by a user’s hand or device orientation.
The patent application, which was filed on August 5, 2008, is credited to prominent Apple iPod engineer Michael Rosenblatt and iPod systems engineer Daniel Warren.
Apple has revealed an interest in solar technology for its portable devices in the past, previously filing a patent application describing the addition of solar cells behind the glass of an IBM ThinkPad X30 Battery LCD screen. It is unknown, however, whether such technology will ever be included in shipping devices, as Apple has a history of applying for patents on technologies that never end up seeing the light of day.