“Apple has been granted a patent for a camera latch by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and seems to involve what most folks would describe as a table PC or at least interesting (and unreleased) variations on the MacBook and/or MacBook Pro,” Dennis Sellers reports for Macsimum News.
Sellers reports, “The patent involves a portable computer and/or a laptop that includes a base. The portable computer also includes a lid that pivots relative to the base. The portable computer further includes a latch including a data capture device such as a camera that is configured to secure the lid to the base. The invention relates, in another embodiment, to a monitor. The monitor includes a display housing. The monitor also includes a display coupled to the display housing. The monitor also includes a camera coupled to the display housing.”
Full article with patent application illustrations here.
HUH??
Laptop? Or maybe a successor to the Mac mini?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
To quote Austin Powers….
“Whoop-dee-doo Basil, what does it all mean?”
Next!
I’m with macaholic.
Gawd, I thought it was me! Thanks “macaholic” and “thelt”! (Perhaps I need to eat more fish or something.)
In the linked article, the picture seems to have little to do with the text.
It appears to me that this is a new camera mont that will swivel and tilt, rather than the fixed, unmovable mount used on the current ‘Books.
Interesting? Yes.
Earth shattering? No.
CLEARLY not EVEN CLOSE to a tablet. this is just a removable isight with its own ability to pivot and rotate.
these journalists need to do their homework.
Sounds like a laptop with a pan and tilt screen.
There was a PC laptop with a screen like this released a while back.
Just build me a 8 core workstation now Apple and we can do more business.
This is just a patent for a latch that doubles as a pivoting camera.
That being said, I still hope that someday Apple does a tablet.
Most likely a Macbook or Macbook Pro with a swivel iSight camera.
Holy cripes! Sounds like they’re mixing the matter with the anti-matter! Oh, wait, the TV was on while I was reading that…
This looks to me like a patent on the camera in the Macbook/Macbook Pro; nothing else.
The monitor and base relating to a trap of a fish-type design whereas a user when leaning within a predetermined distance to the screen is trapped and drawn into said screen by virtue of whoopie-doo.
I see a diagram of a laptop with a webcam that may rotate forward/backward, rotate side-to-side, slide horizontally, perhaps extend vertically.
Very cool.
No description of any tablet except tablet.
The article just copies a description of a standard laptop from the patent. Ugh. The MacDailyNews comments just copy from the article. Double ugh.
Lame cut-and-paste (perhaps without even reading) reporting.
But great idea from Apple!
Is it just me, or has MDN gotten way slower than molasses? I’ve got better things to do than sit here and wait forever for the fricking page to load!
Or maybe not….
Whatever the added functionality, it looks like the only way to get rid of the extra screen border thickness required to accommodate the integrated iSight Camera. I’ll bet the next design of the MacBook Pro enclosure is so sleek and sexy that the oddly thick border above (but not to the sides) of the screen would stand out even more! “Not an option,” declares Steve Jobs, the famous aesthetic stickler. (Without Jobs & Ive we’d all still be typing on laptops as thick as bathroom scales, with screen borders as thick as dicks.) After all . . .
. . . today’s MacBook Pros are just PowerBooks with that extra thick screen border, so one has to assume a more than merely updated MacBook Pro is likely to accompany the launch of Leopard this Spring.
yes but what it is actually meant for the iPhone or iPod?
It’s a camera hinge that moves left and right, up and down, rotates up and down and left and right, swings this way and that pointing that way or this as the user desires, and serves as a latching mechanism by slotting into an indentation on the front edge of the laptop, for which purpose it must be in a position of no left nor right, no up nor down beyond its base, and no rotation left nor right nor up nor down nor thisaway nor thataway nor anyway. To be clear, it’s not a hinge but a sliding swinge.
Imagine, that you are on a conference far away from home, and you like to have your mate at home got somewhat an idea of what’s going on, then you need a tilt and swivel camera, on top on your laptop screen
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
This is exactly what I miss most. Especially when travel hotel, and conference fees are just to high for a small company, or for those of us, who live in such remote areas as GREENLAND
It sounds like a Soss-Gilbert hinge that is placed on a longitudinal axis of the screen’s perpendicular. There must be a Simm’s plate involved, otherwise, how could it pivot in-suti to the user? This is a very big question. I’m buying more stock.
Sounds like a Duo-dock to me.
You’re all missing the subliminal context here. This is the widescreen iPhone! Doesn’t anyone see it? </sarcasm>
Any chance that maybe it auto tracks a person as they move around?