Apple Computer is eyeing a technology that could make the iPod more likely to survive a fall.
The company has applied for a patent on technology that would allow a portable media player to detect when it is falling and then stop reading or writing to the hard drive. Such technology would work by detecting the acceleration that accompanies a drop.
"The portable-computing device protects its disk drive by monitoring for such accelerations and operating to avoid usage of the disk drive during periods of acceleration," Apple said in the patent application, which was published Dec. 16. "Through such protection, the likelihood of damage to the disk drive or loss of data stored on the disk drive is able to be substantially reduced."
IBM began including a similar feature on its ThinkPad notebook line in October 2003. Apple's patent application was filed in June 2003, but it wasn't published until last week.
Others are trying different approaches. Hitachi is working to make the hard drive's read/write arm smaller and more nimble. That would make the drive less likely to be damaged in a fall.
Start-up drive maker Cornice has discussed plans for a 3GB, 1-inch drive whose read/write arm physically locks when the drive isn't in use. That won't necessarily protect a drive that is in the process of reading or writing when the device is dropped.
However, the approach taken by IBM and Apple has its limits. It takes time for a device to notice the acceleration. Thus, the product has to be dropped from a certain height for the feature to kick in.
Apple also applied for several other patents that have been published in recent weeks. One covers the technology that musicians and record labels use to submit music to the iTunes Music Store. Several others cover video-conferencing technology. Another patent, published Wednesday, appears to cover the concept included in Mac OS X Panther's Expose feature, where overlapping windows are separated on the same screen.
Considering that Apple alone comes up with as many new ideas as HP/Dell/Gateway/Microsoft/RedHat combined I'd say that is one area where Apple is strong. Besides, products tend to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. That is, with the notable exceptions of a few products like iPod or Napster to stir things up.
The technology that detects quick acceleration is too generic to be copyrighted for the ipod. A lot of hard drive's already have this technology. It would be like copyrighting the speedometer on a ferrari.
The story refers to the iPod detecting an "increase" in acceleration. It would actually need to detect a decrease. There would need to be accelerometers on three axis. When all three went to zero simultaneously, that would be the indicator that the iPod was in free fall. At rest on Earth, the iPod would detect an aggregate acceleration of 1g. The amount detected by each accelerometer would be determined by the iPod's orientation. Moving the iPod around, during walking or running for instance, would create chaotic signals from the accelerometers which the iPod could ignore.
Well, I think that the hard drive protection is a good idea, but patenting the technology and design will surely weed out some of the competition that cannot innovate and patent quick enough.
This is such a significant differentiator that it could render some media player brands out of the game.
Media Player Protection iPod Patents... <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/" target="_newWindow">http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/</a>
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At rest on Earth, the iPod would detect an aggregate acceleration of 1g. The amount detected by each accelerometer would be determined by the iPod's orientation. Moving the iPod around, during walking or running for instance, would create chaotic signals from the accelerometers which the iPod could ignore.
This is such a significant differentiator that it could render some media player brands out of the game.
Media Player Protection iPod Patents... <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/" target="_newWindow">http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/</a>