October 29th, 2006
Apple patent art may point to iPod with camera
Although Apple takes pains for illustrations in a U.S. Patent Application published on Thursday to be regarded as only "exemplary" of a multiple-function multimedia device activated by touch-screen "bezel" technology.
Yet, since so much space in the Application is devoted to ways that such systems as digital photography and music can be combined on one device makes one wonder if what we are seeing here is actually a design for an iPod with a digital camera.
This functionality has been referred to elsewhere on the Web, but not with the detail and depictions I offer now. Thesedepictions are possible via the application of the Patent I will describe above.
This new art seems to point to:
An iPodcam with touch-screen capability that would enable the user to switch back and forth between music-player and camera modes.
Before I show you some of the specific and highly-detailed Patent art examples that lead me to this conclusion, let's talk about the Patent application itself.
Electronic Device Having Display and Surrounding Touch Sensitive Bezel for User Interface and Control, the Patent app USPTO 20060238517) in question here, does not contain an Abstract that says anything about an iPodcam. The Abstract refers instead to the touch-screen technology used.
The Abstract for this Patent Application describes this invention as:
An electronic device has a display and has a touch sensitive bezel surrounding the display. Areas on the bezel are designated for controls used to operate the electronic device. Visual guides corresponding to the controls are displayed on the display adjacent the areas of the bezel designated for the controls. Touch data is generated by the bezel when a user touches an area of the bezel. The device determines which of the controls has been selected based on which designated area is associated with the touch data from the bezel. The device then initiates the determined control. The device can have a sensor for determining the orientation of the device. Based on the orientation, the device can alter the areas designated on the bezel for the controls and can alter the location of the visual guides for the display so that they match the altered areas on the bezel.
It's only when you look deep into the Application's literature and Art that you get a sense of what might be in play here. Emphasis, "might."
I now will show you some of the Patent art that makes me go "hmm."
First, a caveat: I show these images in the same orientation that the Patent service does. Experience has taught me that given the multi-step conversion process between Patent art formats and the best formatting for showing this art on the Web, that keeping the the orientation is a solid idea.
Now let us go to what we are talking about here. And all of this art I am about to show you refers to an individual device, identified in the Patent application literature as "device 800."
So let us see what "device 800" can do.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
