Does this patent mean flip screen iPhone is on the way?

Secret launches are great for winding up a bit of product interest. You only have to look at the reactions from journos during Steve Jobs keynote speech to appreciate the fact that Apple are very successful in building up hype. Of course, nothing’s as secretive as you think it is in the world of consumer electronics. ‘Leaks’ are sometimes (shock, horror) planned by the manufacturers as a bit of PR spin, or indeed, real bits of gossip can spread like wild fire. Still, at the end of the day there’s something quite exciting about a new launch even if you already have your suspicions what it might be.

Now, patents are another story. Whilst anyone can have access to the latest patent applications and get a sneak peek at the direction a company like Apple is going with their designs, there’s always the possibility that it will never go into production, and they’re simply doing their damned hardest to ensure no-one else reigns in on the technological glory.

The latest patent submission to emerge from Apple headquarters is for a flip-screen iPhone. Whilst the diagrams don’t really do it any justice in terms of attractiveness (they’re playing it pretty safe with not leaking out any specific design plans) it’s clear to see that the application is for a clamshell touchscreen device.

In the application the plans talk of a double-sided touchpad interface that’s connected to the bottom half of the device. This means that there’s a multi-touch trackpad on the base whilst the top screen acts as the display. The benefit? Well, this essentially means that it will take up half the size of the regular phone when it’s folded over.

With this trackpad feature the idea is that you’d be able to control the phone in a number of ways including:

• Dialing a number by drawing it on the trackpad.
• Using it to display the traditional T9 keypad
• Keeping both sides of the cover/trackpad active at the same time, so you can keep multi-functions open depending on the position of your trackpad.
• The flip-out touchpad is also double-sided so it’s touch-sensitive on the front and on the back to interact with different features.

Whilst the design seems very innovative it also sounds a bit over-complicated and seems to go against the simplicity of other Apple products. Only time will tell.

Timberland set up $7 million fund for spam text messages

In 2005 Jeffrey Weinstein, from Logan Square in the US, received an SMS from Timberland offering a 20% discount for shopping at their website. Weinstein wasn’t happy at receiving what he considered to be an unsolicited text message so he has sued Timberland and GSI Commerce an e-commerce company that worked with Timberland on the marketing campaign for 7 million dollars.

Weinstein, upon receving the message thought: “There has to be a law against something like this”. When he investigate the issue it emerged that the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans unsolicited calls on mobile telephones so he went ahead with a class action lawsuit against Timberland. Timberland has now agreed to start a $7 million settlement fund to compensate those affected by the unsolicited text messages although Weinstein will only be entitled to $5000 of this money.

Visiting the official website of the settlement fund allows claimants to complete a claim form detailing the exact dates they received the messages. Compensation is being capped at $150 per person but only if they can remember the date of the text message.

The fund is effectively meaningless because very few people will be able to remember when they received a spam text message dating back to 2003.

MMS updated digital photo frame

T-Mobile have launched an amazing new product – a digital photo frame which updates via MMS message. The Cameo photo frame, which needs a SIM card, lets a mobile phone user send a photo message to the frame, which the automatically updates the display.

This device will clearly be a top seller for Christmas if T Mobile release it in time because the digi photo frame was a huge seller last Xmas.

The price is about £50, which is fairly standard for photo frames, but you must also buy a £5 per month contract with T-Mobile. 

In brief, the Cameo has a High-res TFT screen with 720 x 480 pixels, it displays photos with 260000 colours, the display dimensions are 130 x 87 mm, it receives MMS messages, the photo formats are JPEG and GIF and it stores up to 500 photos.

Sony Ericsson and Nokia working on 4G

It’s not often you hear about two major mobile phone manufacturer’s playing nicely and working together, but mention the words ‘4G’ to Nokia and Sony Ericsson and they happily link up together arm and arm under the view that there’s safety in numbers when it comes to thrashing the likes of Intel.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NED and Alcatel-Lucent have recently joined forces to build a licensing framework for new 4G patents, and the new solid team could mean that they are in a stronger position to compete against Intel’s Wimax plans.

The four mobile phone companies are claiming that the new licensing framework – dubbed Long Term Evolution, or LTE for short is the future for mobile phones and will eventually also replace Wi-Fi.

When the 4G system goes ahead the providers should be able to provide voice, data and streamed multimedia on an “anytime, anywhere” basis.

Of course, Nokia seem to have had their focus on developing the next generation of mobile phones now, they’ve even carried out extensive tests in an urban environment earlier on in the year. The results seemed pretty spectacular – trialling on a 2.6GHz spectrum they managed to achieve a maximum download speed of 173Mbps.

Even though it looks like plans for the next-gen of mobile phone seems to be going well, it’s not worth getting too excited about yet. Even if the LTE group can demonstrate that new technology can run on existing base stations, estimates are that we won’t see it being commercially released until around 2010.

Rubber touchscreen aids for the fat of finger!

Touchscreen mobiles are great in theory, but get the accuracy of your key-targetting off a little and you could be heading off into a completely different direction than you intended.

Touchscreens weren’t made for fish finger-sized thumbs and indexes and that’s why the manufacturers TAD have come up with some rather wacky looking ‘Phone Fingers’ to help combat the phenomenon of ‘fat tapping. They’re also being touted as being saviours for solving unwelcome touchscreen nail breaks.

If you can get over the fact that they may possibly make you appear slightly odd the TAD Phone Fingers could be the answer to all your problems. Each TAD is made up of a rubber ring and one of three different plastic pointers – a cone shape with small point for accuracy and two different flattened pointers for quick inputting.

TAD is so confident that these little fingers will hit off that they’ve patented the design. Available in blue, pink or black the phone fingers are available in three different sizes, from 14mm to 18mm. They’re not very expensive, priced at only £2.99 so you’re not going to break the bank if you’re interested in trying them out and they can even be used for general texting on regular buttons and controlling your TV remote.

Alternatively, if you want to go for an even cheaper option you could go down to your local Post Office and ask them nicely if you can borrow their little rubber thimblette they used to flick through paperwork – it should work just as well!

New Orientation Touchscreen patented by Sony Ericsson

Yet another mobile patent is the talk of the town and this time it comes courtesy of Sony Ericsson. They’ve filed a patent application for something called an “orientation based multiple mode mechanically vibrated touchscreen display”. Sounds…um…complicated!

The new technology would sense the orientation of the handset and alter the configuration of the “mechanically vibrating touchscreen display.” Using small vibrations the phone will give the user the sensation that they’re pushing a real button.

Featured in the application are a whole host of diagrams and drafts. It’s always surprising to see how basic and un-glamorous patent application images look. The pictures are really just there to do a job and explain the concept rather than win any artistic award, so it’s always very difficult to imagine how attractive and workable a gadget will be in the flesh.

The application for the orientation-led Sony Ericsson shows that when the handset is laid out in landscape orientation the device adopts gaming controls, with ‘PSP’ keywords being mentioned in the application more than a few times.

Tip the handset over into a standard position and the touchscreen adopts the look of a traditional candy bar phone with a keypad and navigational keys. So, this should take the misery out of complicated menu systems with the phone intelligently knowing what you want to use it for depending on the orientation.

Of course, as with all patents there’s no guarantee that they will go into production so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Disposable mobile phone – what a good idea!

Despite our consumer love for sleek and shiny mobiles with big, generous, in-your-face touchscreens there are phone manufacturers out there’s a future is in going back to basics. The recent CTIA meetings in Las Vegas were a chance for disposable mobile pioneers Hop-on to show off their low-end GSM mobile phone, distinctly lacking in any LCD screen. It was met with such a warm response that an initial European test purchase order of 10,000 phones has been placed (the phones have previously only been available in America, Australia and Asia).

Available for around £10, the Hop-on 1900 would be more likely to be found on a newsagents counter than a mobile phone shop. Being advertised as a ‘stylish disposable phone’, its a good option to give to kids and teenagers for piece of mind or elderly citizens who have problems operating a standard mobile phone with complex menu functions. For tourists who don’t have any network coverage the 1900 is also a bit of a blessing as it doesn’t require any contract commitment. For those who aren’t fussed on owning a mobile phone, but feel like they should have one on them for security reasons, there’s also a direct button to access the emergency services – although without a clear Keypad Lock function, surely that’s asking for trouble?

This is a phone to be viewed in a completely different light to mobile with all the bells and whistles of advanced features. Although an initial scoff is understandable, it could certainly be a handy back-up if you have to send away your regular mobile phone for repair, especially if you don’t have any other older mobiles shoved away in a drawer at home.

Femtocell to be the next big thing?

Never heard of the term ‘Femtocell’? Clueless as to what it could even mean? Well, Femtocell Mobile technology could become as popular a term as ‘bluetooth’ within the next couple of years if the manufacturers have any say in the matter, and the word on the street is that mobile phone companies will be encouraging everyone to get one.

If you’ve ever struggled to talk on your mobile phone at home due to poor signal, and regularly find yourself pacing from room to room or even hanging out of the window to maintain your phone connection then this could be the solution. The Femtocell is essentially a mini mobile phone mast that’s no bigger than a portable hard drive or a BT Home Hub. It looks pretty inconspicuous and can easily be position on a shelf or next to your computer.

By equipping yourself with a Femtocell you can ensure that you have full reception on your phone when you’re at home, and make sure that your 3G-enabled handset doesn’t fail on poor signal.

Other than excellent signal, the use of Femtocell technology is expected to benefit mobile phone users in pocket as well. As the cost of handling calls is suggested to be significantly reduced through the use of Femtocells it’s speculated that operators will be more inclined to offer generous bundles on free minutes and data usage whilst the user is at home.

iPhone Telescope Great For Spying On People!

It seems that manufacturers just can’t get enough of thinking of ways to enhance the beloved iPhone, but Vavolo.com are taking things to the extreme with their new camera ‘telescope’, changing the inconspicuous handset into a gadget worthy of James Bond. Rather than being targeted towards undercover spies, the iPhone telescope is specifically designed for capturing events such as concerts, football matches or faraway animals, where it’s not possible to get right up close.

This wide angled detachable lens allows an optical zoom of 6x and is said to overcome the problems of near-sighted camera phones and promises a high level of visual acuteness.

So how is does this contraption attach itself onto the iPhone? Well, rather than fix onto the integrated camera lens itself, the iPhone telescope attaches itself onto a specifically designed piece of iPhone armour, so there’s no need to customise your phone at all.

It looks rather bulky so it’s probably not a feasible piece of equipment to carry around with you all the time, and if you bought the iPhone simple on the principle that it was a sleek and sexy bit of equipment, it’s probably a lot to ask for you to attach this onto your precious possession. However, if you know you’re going to be going along to an event where you would like to take some zoomed in photographs and you don’t have a decent compact camera then the telescope could be an affordable alternative. It’s currently selling for $19.99 plus $6 shipping (although international shipping outside of the US may vary).

New LG Keypad feels like human skin

It sounds like LG have a new member on the board in the form of Hannibal Lecter, but spookily this story isn’t an April Fool’s. The phone manufacturers have just released its new LG-SH240 in the Eastern regions with a keypad that feels like real human skin….nice.Actually crafted from silicone the touchpad and directional control pad makes texting feel like you’re prodding on someone’s skin. What the appeal is for this, we’re not sure, but LG seems to think that high-end handsets ‘utilizing the sense of touch are becoming popular’ and the LG-SH240 is an experiment into different materials. As well as the skin-like pad, the phone is also framed in chrome for contrast. You can’t accuse them of sticking to the same old safe designs, that’s for sure.

Other than the bizarre feeling touchpad, the other features of the SH240 are slightly more sedate. It is Bluetooth-enabled and featuring 3G HSDPA and a 2-megapixel camera, the LG SH240 also features a subway map (although there’s currently no news on the cities that are covered and presumably they would be in Korea anyway). There’s also a built-in dictionary and an external memory card slot so that it can be filled with music for the included MP3 player as well as a video-calling feature.

There aren’t currently any plans to ship these skinny devices over to the UK anytime soon, but they are selling in Korea for around 400,000 won (which equates to about $400). Let’s hope no bootleg models come onto the market.