Jeff Bezos Wants To Put an Airbag In Your iPhone 102
theodp writes "Don't want to pay Apple $199 to repair the cracked screen of the $199 iPhone you dropped? Neither, apparently, does Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A patent application made public Thursday lists Bezos as an inventor of 'a system and method for protecting devices from impact damage,' which proposes using airbags, springs, and even a jet propulsion system to keep your iPhones, iPads, and other portable devices safe and out of the clutches of the Genius Bar. Let's hope there's an API — those gas cartridges could be a game-changer for fart apps!"
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That's what SHE said!
How about a case? (Score:1)
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At the cost of additional complexity, airbags would theoretically give you all the advantages of having a case so comically thick that you would never use it, in a case that you would actually use.
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Getting the economics to work out is largely a matter of tweaking the sensitivity of the trigger and designing the consumable properly.
That's the problem with patents nowadays. even if you don't make the stuff (or produce any stuff except bullshit patents), you can collect a tax on people who work out the actual tricky practical details.
The innovative part is actually creating something that fits in/on/around a phone that can tell the difference between it falling to the floor and it falling in your pocket towards the floor or you running with it in your hand/handbag and swinging it around, or you dropping the phone into a bag or onto a be
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You certainly could imagine someone inviting and producing anti-gravity units and then getting sued by some sleaze like Bezos for infringing his, a product that doesn't hit the ground patent.
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Yeah that's the problem with this sort of shit.
And what galls me even more is when the "inventors" think they're so innovative and so they DESERVE to be rewarded with a monopoly.
The real innovative ones typically don't even realize their "little steps" are huge leaps for other people. Or they're just too busy trying to turn dreams into reality for any of that bullshit (having them think daily whether what they've done each day is patentable would just slow them down).
Yes doing away with the patent system wo
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Not to mention the possibility of the "airbag" deploying late and sending your phone back up in the air!
I've had cell phones for around 15 years, and in that time I've only dropped my phone three times - twice it fell out of my jacket (I don't keep my phone in my jacket pocket anymore) and once when a guest in my home kicked it off my coffee table. Why do people always drop their phones? It baffles me. So many young people now insist on the replacement warranty (which is not all that cheap.) I've never paid
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Often not.
And this means that if anyone actually succeeds in making a usable airbag/spring system/jet system to do this then they will have to pay Jeff Bezos for the idea even if JB wasn't involved at all.
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it costs that for a 2 year lock in.
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Who the hell charges subsidized-phone rates for a SIM-only service? AT&T? Well, I have T-mobile, so that doesn't OH FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
Yeah, your iPhone 4 is more like $650 to replace. (Score:2)
That's true. If you loose your iPhone mid-contract, you're going to have to replace it, which would run you about $650 [amazon.com].
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Good one. I have a since of humor...
Unexpected airbag deployment (Score:1)
Re:Unexpected airbag deployment (Score:5, Funny)
And, in the unlikely event that it just deploys spontaneously I don't want an airbag up against my ear.
Wait, you still use a phone to make calls? How quaint...
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Is that an airbag in your pocket ?
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Gas cartidge? (Score:2, Offtopic)
They won't give iPhone or iPad users an SD slot or the ability to replace the battery without completely dismantling the phone, but will give us a gas cartridge?
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TFA doesn't mention iPhone specifically (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA, and TF Linked Patent Application, don't contain the words "Apple," "iPhone" or "iPad" at all. The headline of TFA says, "Smartphone."
Did Slashdot substitute that with "iPhone" just to get the nerds all riled up? Wouldn't be the first time.
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It's probably meant for the Kindle. Mabye even a future 'smartphone' variety of the Kindle brand.
Suggesting he's designing inventions for Apple seems fairly absurd considering.
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That's a good deal. A friend of mine recently dropped his HTC Wildfire and said it was 150 EUR to replace the cracked glass. He didn't have any kind of insurance on it though. Ended up just buying another phone.
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Did Slashdot substitute that with "iPhone" just to get the nerds all riled up?
Heh. Check out apple.slashdot.org, the average comment count per-story is significantly higher than on the main page.
Oh the fun of ad-supported news sites.
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Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6PsnCs07aw [youtube.com]
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More funny than interesting.
The API will get hacked SO FAST! (Score:1)
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Like most smartphone manufacturers, they're already using the strongest glass that is economically viable which is almost always the part that breaks when a modern phone is dropped. And to be fair, it's a bit of a crap shoot, a small fall at just the right angle can shatter the glass while a dozen falls from a higher height may not. I, for one, have scratches and chips in the metal bezel of my phone, but not a single mark on the glass, and it's over 2 years old now.
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/dad_mode
If you really want to minimize damage, quit screwin' around and don't drop your fancy toys in the first place!
Re:Dumbest idea awarded to Jeff (Score:4, Informative)
Your basic free-on-contract snap-on-ABS-modular-carrier-branding-panels-and-not-especially-tight-tolerances dumbphone is actually pretty good at being resistant to drops. The ABS flexes, absorbing some of the energy, the battery door pops off and goes flying, and the LCD is a dinky little module loosely held behind a plastic cover by a ribbon cable and a couple of pegs. You can practically feel the thing flex when you try to use it; but it simply flexes and springs back when dropped.
Your canonical contemporary smartphone, by contrast, is designed to feel like a solid 2001-but-with-a-touchscreen slab of the future. No flex, no wasted volume that acts as a 'crumple zone', toughened glass that is much more scuff resistant than plastic; but shatters rather than denting/scratching, etc. Feels impenetrable in use; but inelastic collisions are painful...
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All that adds bulk, though. As best I can tell(in the same way that everybody loaths wall-wart AC adapters; but
How about a design which facilitates... (Score:2)
....easy field-stripping and parts replacement?
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Like the Motorolla Blur, perhaps? We've got them at work and we've had to replace a screen already (we've been using the Blur for about a month so far). $50, quick and easy. Generator service technicians are really hard on their phones. I'm sure it's not the only repairable phone out there, but it is the one in my pocket at the moment.
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....easy field-stripping
What is the location of the field where this will be taking place?
I can do this today! (Score:3)
Acme! (Score:1)
One Word: (Score:3)
Rollercoaster.
The phone can at most, when dropped (as opposed to "be thrown"), accelerate at 1G, no? You can exceed that in a car. Or taking off in a plane. Rollercoasters can get upward of 4. Nothing like this thing exploding in your pocket when the light turns green.
And the directional stuff I've seen on most are pretty laggy. Is there really time for it to wake up, determine which way is down, that it's heading there, that it's not a whale or bowl of petunias, and deploy an airbag?
Another word: GLOVES. [thedailywtf.com]
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Its not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.
When the phone lands it stops suddenly, leading to more (possibly much more) than 1G of acceleration in the opposite direction.
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You've missed the point. In your car, the airbag deploys after the impact of the car with the tree/other car/other obstacle, but before you impact with the steering wheel or the side of the car. If the smartphone airbag deployed on impact, it would be too late -- the damage is done. The smartphone therefore has to predict the impact, which it can only do by detecting the fall. Unfortunately, the accelerometers in the phone don't know the difference between falling and other forms of acceleration....
The
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Think about what you said. What does the phone see when you drop it? 1G? Nope, that's when you're holding it. It sees zero. If you're accelerating straight down in your car at 1G you're going to need more than airbags on your phone.
But yes, probably not good to take in the vomit comet.
Not to pick nits, but... (Score:3)
"pay Apple $199 to repair the cracked screen of the $199 iPhone you dropped?" is utterly wrong. A new iPhone with no new contract attached to it costs much more than $199 -- $649 to be precise.
Paying $199 to have it replaced if totally destroyed is not that bad actually.
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They realize it in a hurry the first time they have to replace a phone. And they are better people for it.
A solution already exists... (Score:2)
...it's called phone insurance. You know, that lone option that 95% of people feel is a complete ripoff and don't buy it...You know, the same people who are more than willing to bend over and spend $200 on the latest iHipsterGadget, along with paying $80/month for the service.
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Insurance shouldn't normally cost 10% of the total replacement cost per year. It also shouldn't come with the massive amount of fine print and red tape that it has.
It's hardly a solution. Of course, neither is reactive armor.
Bezos phone (Score:2)
Given Amazon's recent forays into Android space, I would assume Mr. Bezos carries an Android phone. If his phone is an iPhone, it would destroy the credibility of Amazon's Android market - in a lot of people's eyes, anyway.
Impractical (Score:1)
Like many others have said, a case would be fine. Or even tether it to your pants if you're really paranoid about dropping or losing it. This invention would likely cost more than the alternatives. It would add to the weight and bulk of your phone. It's also likely that it would not be allowed on airplanes as airliners understandably have policies that disallow pressurized items from being on a plane (particularly in a carry-on, but the TSAs might get suspicious if they scan it in your baggage as well).
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Patents (Score:2)
If you said to a group of Freshman Mechanical Engineers, "Come up with a couple ideas to protect a device from impact," don't you think EVERY SINGLE ONE would propose this crap? How is this even close to being non-obvious. I can't think of a solution that is LESS obvious.
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I hope not. I'd fail them all for this idea.
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I agree... I was kind of thinking of the brainstorming phases...
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Whew.
Way back in undergrad I took a robotics course, with the robots built out of lego (pre-mindstorms, we used HC11 based micro controller boards and lego we modified with a dremel). The first lab assignment was to build a chassis that could survive the metre and a half fall from the lab bench to the concrete floor. When you thought you had something that would work, the professor would walk over and... knock your robot off the bench. Airbags were not considered.
I thought iphones were supposed to break. (Score:1)
So you could buy a newer one.
Flimsy Apple junk (Score:1)
There are ruggedized phones. Apple just doesn't make one.
For what they charge, the screen should be sapphire, not glass. Sapphire sheet is neither rare nor expensive. Supermarket checkout scanners [seamarkonline.com] (and, especially, Home Depot) usually use sapphire windows. You can drag metal cans and tools across those for years without scratching them.
Then there's the whole silliness of needing a case to protect an iPhone. If the thing was designed right [pcmag.com], you wouldn't need a case to protect it. There are phones that [pcmag.com]
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A lot of phones use Gorilla glass - the toughest glass made. It is not designed to be weak or designed poorly it is designed to be on par with typical smart phones. They don't sell a rugged version of the iPhone. Bug apple if you want one; otherwise get something else.
Well, he put an airbag in Amazon! (Score:2)
Thank you thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the waitress!
I do not want that going off in my pocket. (Score:3)
But I do want that going off in a phone thief's trousers!
Can we get the "iED" option added to Find My iPhone?
(FYI: airbag cartridges are an "are you fscking kidding me" item for carry-on or checked baggage.)
CAPTCHA: blister. Yeah, I bet it would.
Information superhighway (Score:2)
I guess he misunderstood the "information superhighway" metaphor.
Airbag in iPhone (Score:1)
money talks (Score:1)