Slashdot Mirror
Sony Develops Fluid-Filled Bags For Hard Disks
MsManhattan writes "Sony has filed for a US patent on a liquid-filled airbag that cushions hard disks from heavy shocks in portable electronic devices. 'The liquid used could be water or silicon oil,' and 'the electronics would of course be in a liquid-tight case.' Sony expects to use the technology in mobile devices such as cameras, media players, smartphones, and laptops." The article mentions a clever approach Sony has come up with to handle shocks of varying intensity.
I expect solid state storage to make redundant the need for liquid cushioning for hard drives and we won't be dealing with this cushioning problem for long. Already there have been a number of incidents where solid state memory is proving far more resistant to physical damage (shock and water immersion) than "rotational media" and with plummeting costs, consumers will have access to far more solid state media in the very near future anyway. Hey the people that are being really hard on their equipment are going with solid state storage, so why should not the rest of us for our iPods, laptops and iPhones?
Besides, I just don't know about fluid filled electronics. I've played around with liquid cooling in the past and have never been able to come up with a reliable (read: long term=years) solution that does not leak. We run our systems 24/7 and I thought that perhaps Apple had come up with a decent solution for liquid cooling on their older G5 towers, but we currently have a dual G5 in the shop that had managed to pee all over itself. Needless to say, that is a system that is awaiting a part from IBM and is down, not doing anything productive. Apple had the right idea in dumping the IBM and their liquid cooling necessity and I think that for the time being, I'll avoid drives bathed in liquid as well... Especially given that the articles focus is for equipment that receives more physical impacts than a desktop machine.
P.S.... Not sure why this was posted under YRO...
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
...the hell ist that YRO. seems quite technical...
Now that's logical!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
"Sony expects to use the technology in mobile devices such as cameras, media players, smartphones, and laptops." Camera's have HDD's? O.o Surely a cushion of water wouldn't protect something like a cell phone hitting the concrete.
"ATI cards are like buses...They're huge, red and have bad drivers."
But will it hold linux?
-1 not first post
When I throw her cell phone against the pavement, I expect it to break.
Sigh.
Actually, I don't have bones. I am supported by a system of fluid-filled bladders...
I see this could help businesses to become people ready. With liquid-filled, people ready laptops users will for the first time engage rss-capable APIs with Cluetrain widget mashups, all whilst taking a dump!
Did we mention it would be people_ready?
to heck with my karma! How do they buffer the intense shock of their crappy PS3 sales figures!
meh
it had that p-p-p-.. oh, I just can't SAY IT! .. that WORD in it. That starts with P and means Pure Evil.
(at least, it 's a possible reason. I don't have any problem with patents, myself.)
- A. C.
Rumours are surfacing that Sony has also been employing similar fluid sacs to absorb the blow of piracy. These fluid sacs are called "people" and, by inserting them into a judicial system, they can be induced release quantities of money.
These stories are free but worth money.
I hate to think what airlines would think of all this evil liquid being allowed on board as well.
the hydraulic shock absorber. Grats to them.
this means we're one step closer to bionueral gel packs! (yes I know those didn't actually store data on Star Trek, they processed or relayed commands or whatever) Seriously, you add some nerves to that sucker with the hard drive in the middle and get to to learn math and you've got a computer in a pouch lol
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Why do I feel like there's something funny to be said by linking "liquid filled bags" and soilent green in some way.
Just the obligatory Star Trek quote
As an added bonus, the disks come with the rootkit pre-installed!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Great idea... but all I can focus on are the 4 hours of airport security checks in which I will have to dismantle my portable media player, notebook and cellphone , remove their gel bags and toss them in a dirt bin before I can check in to my flight *sigh*
Not trying to troll here, I'm just really curious what this has to do with m(Y) (R)ights (O)nline? I now have a right to bags full of silicone while using a computer? Oh, wait, that's been on the net for *ages*...
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Who cares. Remember the Sony DRM? They are evil. Sony sucks and Nintendo is way better. I bet this fluid filled bag has DRM, too. I for one would prefer not to have Sony DRM on my computer, so I will not be purchasing this product. DRM. Hopefully Nintendo will come up with an even more innovative product soon, like using rubber to protect the hard drive.
All we need now is to integrate these packs with some processor-type lifeforms and voila, Bio-Neural Gel Packs. Everyone's least favorite Star Trek Captain is closer than you think.
These bags go inside the drives! Plus they are "on the internet."
I was under the impression they strapped their HDD's onto a gelpack using velcro.
but the hard drives will be firm and perky, and will remain so for quite some time. In fact, in 20 years, these laptops will have the hard drives of a young laptop. This will help to maintain the overall self-esteem of the laptop.
And they're totally safe. If the bags happen to leak, the fluid is reabsorbed by the system.
Seriously though. Between rootkits and exploding batteries, should we honestly trust anything designed by Sony?
If you put a rootkit in a liquid gel doesn't it sprout and form a whole plant?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Wonderbra announces a complete line of carry cases for the gel-filled bags...
UGLY BAGS OF MOSTLY WATER
Hard drives come in bags!
A topic about "Fluid-Filled Bags" and not a single pee joke to be seen. For shame on all of you.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Now if they'd only invent liposuction for Windows...
Is this story about hard drives or a porno?
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
After Sony inserted these fluid filled bags into my hard drive, I find myself staring at it more, and I can't stop fondling it.
Does anyone else see something wrong with calling it a liquid-filled airbag?
"What a fine pair of SCSI's you have"
Oh man, how perfect is this? Now when their hard drives explode, the computer will be able to put itself out!
Sounds a lot like a typical oleo strut found on nearly all modern aircraft. Drive a rod whose diameter increases through a fixed opening and dampen the action with liquid. The idea has been around at least since the early 1900s and applied to all manner of shock-absorption needs. Sounds like a neat idea, but I wonder how well it will work since the idea is to increase the distance or time period (or both) over which the shock is applied. Small devices are already so small, will these air(liquid) bags be able to dampen enough given the limited space in which they'll be installed? Besides, isn't my hard drive already tested to 11g (or something like that? I don't remember).
Since this is Sony, are they going to call these "Douche Bags?"
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
1. Air should have better shock absorption abilities (consider an airbag filled with *water* in your car.. won't be nice)
2. And won't cause 'hardware casualties' upon container penetration (read: water or silicon gel all over your gadget/laptop).
I just hope they use liquids because I'm missing something obvious (likely), and not because they're patently stupid (unlikely), or stopped by patents (a bit more likely).
If I'm not misktaken, there are filtered holes for air inake to provide a cushion between the head and platter... Without the air, the head crashes and digs into the drive platter. Now, I didn't RTFA, but still. Liquid-tight cases are also gas-tight, and my buddy O2 is a gas at parties.
#include <disclaimer.h>
#include <beer.h>
Maybe they got the liquid into the envelope the same way that they get the soft flowing caramel inside the chocolaty pockets of the Caramilk bar.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
> penetrate the envelope
ah, envelope, is that what we're calling it these days? (sorry, the high schooler in me hasn't graduated for decades now - and he plans to stay there for as long as he can)
"Honest! I didn't piss my pants. It's just a leaky drive in my pocket."
I hope my hard drive doesn't develop breast cancer or some other disease when they rupture...
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
It kind of depends on how you define "air". Usually when a lay person is saying "air" in this context they mean gas filled, and not filled with "78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% carbon dioxide and trace gasses"
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
20 years ago my Biology teacher told our class a great way to protect anything is to wrap it in a large bag of fluid. He used pregnancy as an example. Sorry SONY, but a lot of prior art there! Wonder if my old Biology teacher can sue you? If it doesn't, it still falls under obvious.
SONY, stick to what you're good at: Incompatible Consumer Electronics, rootkits, exploding batteries, and your stake in the RIAA Mafia.
USPTO: Yeah, well, We'd expect nothing less from you.
Sony has announced that this new technology will only be compatible with the new Sony branded hard disk drives, Sony harddiskstick duo.
At least now we have something to extinguish those exploding batteries :)
why yro? maybe because it looks like yet another broad patent over an obvious idea with lots of prior art and no helpful details on practical implementation to be used when it expires?
Most of the fluid-filled bags at Sony work in their upper management, and frankly I'd like to shock-test more than a few of them. See if they burst when you drop them from the roof. I also don't really care if they leak when I poke some wires into them.
... we're heading out to see Silver Surfer in a couple minutes, and I'd rather see a lame sequel than read much of anything about Sony.
Besides, using a gel or fluid to spread the force of an impact is an ancient idea. Come on, the stench of obviousness can be detected a mile away. Might as well patent using a pointing device for online shopping. There could certainly be some patentable aspects to such an "innovation", but in and of itself it's pretty ridiculous.
Of course, I didn't read the FA
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
In five years, all game consoles will be soft and filled with fluid.
You are reading a sig. Cancel or allow?
It's nice to hear of a patent, for once, that isn't about a software process or algorithm; encouraging the sharing of inventions like this is the reason the patent system was created.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
They should mount dual drives inside these breast implants, on the palm rests to give our sore wrists somewhere pleasureful to rest. The Japanese, as usual, are already far ahead of us in this field of ergonomics with their boobie mouse pads.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Do I get to call them fun-bags if I put games on the hard-disk?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
'The liquid used could be water or silicon oil,' Or in the case of Sony: Snake.
What about rubber bushings, spring cages, or foam..... for hard drives! Who owns those ideas?
Silicon and silicone, two of my favourite things combined in two of my favourite things.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
I can understand a gel working, but surely not a liquid. Since liquids dont compress, are you any better off having a device in a bag of liquid?
Because it's about patents, and some people have an allergy to that word as a matter of principle. You know, everyone should invest billions in research (considering that IIRC for medicine it costs over 100 million just to get it tested and approved, and for other high tech stuff research costs are even ridiculously higher) and then let everyone undercut their prices (it's easier to price your stuff cheaper when you don't any research costs to recoup.) People should just be proud to go bankrupt to further technology, obviously.
Also, patents have this nice advantage for FUD and clueless crusading: if you don't actually read it, and conveniently skip (or don't understand) around the parts that are new, everything can be made to sound like a rehash of something that already exists. Sealed hard drive _in_ liquid bag? Well, just ignore the "hard drive in liquid" part and it just sounds like a sealed gel bag. New ceramics insulation for a capacitor? Ignore the new material and manufacturing technology, and it's just a capacitor. New antibiotic? Ignore the "new" part, and the research which went into finding it, and it's just an antibiotic, those things existed for ages. Why the heck are people allowed to patent those?
(For bonus points, for medicine also add (A) the standard conspiracy theories that the Russians/Chinese/Tibetan-monks/etc discovered some wonder drug that heals everything, regardless of being gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, virus, fungus, physical damage, allergy or mutation of one's own cells, and the evil pharma companies hide that so they can sell such new antibiotics, and (B) how they're evil if they try to recoup those research costs instead of giving the medicine for free to poor kids in Africa, and to everyone else who needs it, for that matter.)
At any rate, here's why it's about "your rights": because some people think they have a sacred right to make a living out of someone else's research. They shouldn't ever have to research anything or have a single original thought in their whole life. They should just wait until someone comes up with a new idea, then make a living copying it. If some law prevents them from doing that, it's obviously a violation of their very human rights.
I'm a bit at a loss as to the "Online" part, but I guess it's because there was no "your rights offline" category.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I already have these in my spine and synovial joints. Also British railway carriages look like they use a larger version in their suspension.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
have little windows or even exposed areas where you can see the gel. Done quite frequently on Nike shoes as an advertising point ("Touch here and feel the gel comfort!") Trust me, if it leaked, you'd notice. I own a few pair of running shoes where the sole is filled with gel. If ever there was a leak, the bottoms of my feet would notice it as the cushioning would suddenly feel like I'm running in plain tennis shoes.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Large silicone gel filled bags for cushions. I'll make a note of that in my preliminary design for an android girlfriend.
Have gnu, will travel.
They are really patenting liquid shock absorbers? Plus who cares with solid state up and coming.
If it's *liquid* filled, it's not an "air"bag, now is it?
Chris Mattern
get it right
if it is liquid filled it is not an airbag.if it is an air bag it is not liquid filled