“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday reissued Apple a patent for a mobile computer encased in a pen, adding cellular and GPS capabilities to the invention first filed for internationally in 1998,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“Simply titled ‘Portable computers,’ the invention, originally assigned to British Telecommunications PLC, describes a multifunction device equipped with a pair of accelerometers to recognize handwritten input, a built-in display and an embedded touch strip for GUI navigation,” Campbell reports. “Apple was transferred the U.S. patent rights in 2008.”
Campbell reports, “Interestingly, the patent calls for an ARM processor, the same micro-architecture Apple uses in its A-series SoCs… The device can support sound input/output components that can be used to process speech-to-text and text-to-speech… Perhaps most intriguing is the broadening of the patent to include cellphones, possibly suggesting that handwriting recognition or some other facet of the invention may make its way to a future iOS device.”
More info, and Apple’s patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPen.
Samsung to announce they’re “working” on a “pen computer” in 3… 2… And Google to echo Samsung’s claim along shortly thereafter.
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