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Upside Down Phone Patent
An anonymous reader noted that "A patent has been filed for the "Upside Down Phone", which features the keypad on top and the screen on the bottom. The idea behind the upside down phone is, apparently, to allow faster texting by have a more comfortable position for the thumb to work from. A quick check of this seems to confirm the theory, making this one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments."
I don't know..maybe because the hands will be right on top of the screen and you won't be able to see anything?
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Gonna get rich! I just filed a patent for the upsidedown laptop, where you pull up the keyboard and look down at the screen.
Makes it easier for those of you who type with your feet. (I'm looking at YOU, AOLers...)
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
I bought a Garmin GPS12 back in '98 that had the screen on the bottom. It made for great one-hand used.
I guess adding "cellphone" to a design is just like adding "on the Internet" to a business plan.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
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How the H*ll Can You Patent That?
How is it possible to patent the layout of something? I'll just go and patent a much used way of laying bricks on top of eachother and everyone who builds a house has to pass by my bank account first? This patenting is getting way out of hand!
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Well it's true, there are a lot of things that seem to be common sense that aren't yet patented. For example, my upcoming patent for a simple gesture to signify the consummation of a business deal. I like to call it the handshake.
making this one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments.
This is simply because people don't think about ergonomics or what logically makes sense. Rather, they view things in terms they are familiar with. So since cellphones have always had the buttons on the bottom, everyone just assumed that's where they should go. The same can be said for interfaces in software development. Look at all the sourceforge projects that have GUIs. How many of them are just rehashes of the same bad interface design ideas lifted from Windows?
Ericsson did this way back in 1999 with the "Hedvig".
Project was cancelled, one reason being users didn't like the upside down configuration.
The screen (at the bottom) won't be touched by the ear, so it will stay clean.
No more dirty sticky traces on the screen !
-- Rastignac was here.
What's next, a patent on wearing baseball caps backwards?
As another poster said. my 7 year old Garmin MAP12 handheld GPS had the screen on the bottom and buttons on the top.
Brought to you for the people who do the most 'texting' (shudder at the term); British teens. So what if you gave one of 'em, when, in a rare moment, they use their phone for its intended purposes, a big push on the phone: they'd press all the buttons at once with their zitty cheecks. You'd have to scrape all that pus out from in between the buttons. Yek.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
...the iPhone can do this in software. :-P
Whoa, slow down excitable-designer-person. This too fresh and clean idea is a phone, with buttons for pressing and a screen for watching. It's been done before.
Here's a phone by B&O that came out in europe two years ago: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/serene-bang- -olufsens-upside-down-cellphone-210756.php
And most ideas that are obvious after they're stated were obvious before they were stated. While all ideas that were obvious before they were stated are still obvious afterwards.
Taking an invention and running through all the combinations of directions of placement is not "novel". If I take AT&T's patented keypad and patent it with the numbers running right-left, or down-up, or both, that's an obvious invention from the prior art. So is putting the keypad above the display.
These patents are exceptions to the freedom to express information that are justified only by the necessity to protect the risky investments in invention that competitors would just use to start without the disadvantage of spending first on inventing, then on commercializing. This patent is an obvious example of using the initial investment in inventing the "top display" phone, then competing with it after investing practically nothing in the "bottom display" variation. It's a scam.
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make install -not war
"A patent has been filed for the "Upside Down Slashdot" which features the comments on top and the fucking article on the bottom. The idea behind the upside down Slashdot is, apparently, to allow quicker reading by not having to RTFA. A quick check of this seems to confirm the theory, making this one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments."
@neonux
The Serene phone from Samsung/Bang & Olufsen http://www.serenemobile.com/ already does this -- even lets you switch configurations.
Science fiction for grown-ups...
No, it's a trivial variation on the existing (patented or not) device. The lack of a patent does not indicate that no one thought of it, or would have. Why does this variant need patent protection of its "investment" in its unique design, so others can't compete with it starting with a full bank account? In fact, that is exactly what this design does, competing with existing designs, deriving its design from their substantial investment.
Patenting isn't an "I thought of it first" lottery. It's a major exception to free info exchange justified only as protection of substantial risky investments from competitors. Which investment would otherwise not have been made without the protection. Otherwise these monopolies come too cheap, and interfere with "progress in science and the useful arts".
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make install -not war
I just stand on my head and use my right-side-up phone!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
You're making the assumption that "if noone patented it, noone thought about it", which is, sad to say, bogus. Some people just don't run to the patent office for each and single triviality.
In this case, for example, there I can remember at least two cases of phones built just like that. One even made it all the way to being marketted. (Dunno if it actually sold or not, though.) So, yes, other people "skilled in the art" _did_ think of it before. Go figure.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
bah -- sometimes silly little things like this can lead to spikes in sales.
:P
Just look at shoes with air pumps.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
I've never understood the infatuation with flip-phones
No keyboard locking necessary. I can't count the number of times my wife has forgotten to lock the keyboard on her Nokia, and buttons get pushed on it in her purse.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Ok, part of my viewpoint comes from the fact I'm a cheapskate, and won't pay hundreds of dollars a year for service*, don't care about cameras, internet access etc.. For cheapskates, the soap-bar is king.
Now that flip-phones like the RAZR are around, the size in the pocket is no longer a disadvantage, only leaving the high cost to get a small phone and the fragility of a hinge etc.. In contrast for instance the Nokia 6030 is even given away free for prepaid (T-mobile: $30 including $35 of airtime), the equivalent Samsung flip is a fat lump, and a RAZR costs $200. If you get them "free" with a contract, we all know they're not really free.
The mic on these soap bars is on the bottom of the unit, so won't touch your cheek. With my fairly large head, it's 2 inches from my mouth, and works just fine. No one ever has problems hearing me, and I have to keep telling my wife she can talk more quietly on hers.
I do concede that with the flips don't need to lock the keys, and if you're happy paying for a slim RAZR or whatever, then it's not really inferior. My initial comment was partly out of date, and certainly colored by my usage pattern.
* Prepaid: I use the phone on average of 10 minutes a week. With T-mobile prepaid I can buy 2 year's worth of minutes for $100, and then just have to buy a minimum of $10 after 12 months to keep that balance active for another 12. Total cost for first 2 years service with phone: $140, $50/year after that, assuming all things stay the same. Sure, I could pay $40 or more a month and get more minutes, but they'd be minutes I don't use. I use Skype or Gizmo when I want to have an actual chat, which is rarely when mobile.
So someone thought they had a cool new idea because they hadn't ever seen anything like it and they were wrong... so what? If the patent *issues* then there's something to complain about (though pointing the patent office at the prior art would be a useful public service, unlike whining on Slashdot).
>> No keyboard locking necessary.
unless you have a poorly designed flip phone that happened to have 3 buttons on the outside, and one of them was both the keyboard unlock, and the redial last number button... I CONSTANTLY had that phone calling people from my pocket even though it had both the flip closed AND the keyboard locked! (what idiot designs a phone where the keyguard is turned off by one of only 3 buttons that were NOT covered by the flip cover??? (hint: Samsung SCH-3500 ))