Posted on 06/02/2016 12:16:12 PM PDT by Swordmaker
We will give Apple engineers the benefit of the doubt and assume they weren’t inspired to create new drop-protection technology for iPhones by throwing cats out of a fourth-story window.
Yet the method they’ve proposed in a new patent application for keeping dropped phones from breaking bears a remarkable resemblance to the behavior of a plunging cat, which can orient itself mid-air for the safest landing, on its feet.
“As mobile electronic devices impact a surface after freefall they may be substantially damaged, even if they are encased within a cover or other protective device,” the patent application begins. “Smart phones with cover glass may be particularly vulnerable when the cover glass impacts the ground. They may be much less vulnerable if a metal or plastic portion of the housing of the smart phone impacts the ground first or instead.”
So, just as Whiskers stays safest in a fall by landing on her paws, the iPhone can protect itself by landing on its edge. To accomplish that, Apple inventors Fletcher Rothkopf, Colin Ely and Stephen Lynch propose techniques including a sliding or spinning mass inside the phone to change the orientation of the device as it falls. They also suggest that a tiny canister inside the phone could blast out gas through external nozzles to change orientation, like thrusters on a spaceship, or even to provide a lunar-lander experience for the phone.
“The thrust mechanism . . . may engage immediately before impact to achieve a soft landing,” says the application, filed in February.
Sensors in the iPhone would measure distance to the probable impact surface.
The technology, the inventors say in the application, could also be used for laptops, tablets, digital cameras and music players.
Photo: Cat landing on its feet (Wikimedia Commons/ColKorn1982)
the next big Iphone move will be to have a cut off of signal on your command so you can’t be tracked unless you want to be. Ill buy one.
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Logo lol
Oh, great, now phones will come with a foot long tail on them. Ugh.
Siri can handle that right now. Just tell her what you want and relax, it's all handled automatically...
Well done with the logo!
Strap a cat on one side of it and a piece of buttered toast on the other and it will never even touch the ground.
It's funny... any time I see friends with cracked phone screens it's always an iPhone. I don't know if its because iPhones just crack easier than others, or that iPhone users are just more clumsy than other people.
“Strap a cat on one side of it and a piece of buttered toast on the other and it will never even touch the ground.”
And thus the Hoverphone was invented.
I’ve dropped my iPhone numerous times. Good as new.
I just think I’ve been lucky. Lol
“the next big Iphone move will be to have a cut off of signal on your command so you can’t be tracked unless you want to be. Ill buy one.”
It’s called the power off button ...
If the show “MacGyver” were still around, there’d be all kinds of potential gizmos with this iPhone concept. He could put the phone in a baggy full of hot pepper and throw it at the bads guys, upon impact, the air blasts would fill the room with hot pepper dust.
It already has one: it’s called “airplane mode”.
Why not just strap the phone to the belly of a cat?
My understanding is that tempered glass, will withstand impact on it's face, but will shatter if struck on it's edge. Do smartphones use something other than tempered glass? If not, then the reporters knows not of what he speaks, but then that would no be a surprise.
Might as well just rename it the iClumsy.
If this is supposed to be a selling point, I won’t be interested in buying it. I guess I’ll just have to learn how to replace the battery or stuff in my current phone.
Or downgrade to a cheap dumb phone.
“Honey, whyyyyy were you over at the Westhill Apartment Complex for two hours this afternoon??”
;)
What was that doofus in the picture doing with his phone? Just from the expression on his face I don’t think he deserves an iPhone. ;)
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