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The PalmPilots That Never Were

Posted by timothy on from the cuneiform-input-never-caught-on dept.

harrymcc writes "Among the things that HP is getting in its $1.2 billion takeover of Palm are hundreds of patents for mobile technologies. Many are reflected in Palm's iconic products. But they also include odd keyboard designs, peculiar ideas like a stylus tip that converts into a joystick, and pre-Treo hybrids of phone and PDA that just didn't work. I rounded up some fascinating examples." It's worth clicking through the obnoxious slide-show format to see them.

2 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Makes sense for Palm to patent lots of things... by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...considering how badly they got bit by a patent themselves.

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
  2. Okay, clicking through tfa by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://technologizer.com/2010/04/29/palm-patents/3/ looks like a Handspring Visor module.
    http://technologizer.com/2010/04/29/palm-patents/9/ looks like a ouija board.

    the former is more interesting... I wonder how much of the tech unique to the Visor (i.e. the expansion system) was actually developed at Palm. Surely it was imagined there, but that's not the same thing

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"