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back to article Apple seeks patent for keyboard that sucks

Apple has applied for a patent that describes a novel method for improving the tactile feedback of ultra-thin keyboards: each key emits a puff of air when either approached or touched, and can be pneumatically sucked downward in response to touch. When we discovered patent application number 20110107958, "Input devices and …

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    1. stucs201
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      re: holographically projected keyboards

      Feedback for those could be achieved by aiming a laser at your fingertip, just enough power to feel the warming as feedback. To encourage higher typing speeds increase the power so the user moves on faster.

      (dammit, where's our laser icon?)

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Huh

    'describes a number of different embodiments that combine blowing and sucking in various combinations'

    There goes my coffee.

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  3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    When it goes faulty

    and the suction bit starts to suck when it shouldn't, it might even start typing for you.

    I wonder how many of these keyboards it would take to re-produce the works of Shakespeare?

    Keyboard icon? Well....

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  4. A handle is required
    Coat

    Suggested name

    iBlow

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    1. Mike Arthur
      Reply Icon

      hmm

      surely iSuck is more appropriate :)

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  5. Gannon (J.) Dick
    Happy

    Nice.

    Some headlines almost write themselves. Other's descend from Slacker Journalist Heaven fully formed, ripe and inescapable. (This is a type 2)

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  6. nyelvmark
    Paris Hilton

    Suck, blow

    ...but no squeeze or bang? Definitely sounds like Paris.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    nsfw keyboard

    just don´t put your pants down before shutdown the computer

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  8. The Alpha Klutz

    keyboard that sucks?

    I'll give it a week, maybe two, before it's completely clogged up with dust and therefore useless.

    But when it is broken, at least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that it cost you a significant amount of money.

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  9. BitBotherer

    Hot air

    Not to bothered about quality keyboards at the speed I type but maybe it could dual function by removing the heat from the processor. Could be driven by the waste heat, theres a green idea,

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    1. LaeMing
      Reply Icon
      Go

      All sounds rather steampunk to me.

      Ow. My fingertips are burning!

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  10. Arctic fox
    FAIL

    That's all we need, a bit of dust and....

    ......it will sound like Darth Vader with a bad case of bronchial pneumonia.

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  11. madmalc
    Thumb Down

    New failure mode for keyboards

    Lets make keyboards fail in more complex ways

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  12. lawndart

    says:

    Day 1: New keyboard goes on sale.

    Day 2: Tech-head disassembles keyboard, uprates the air compressor and fits a petrol engine - reveals a keyboard that can double as a self stabilizing hover-board when inverted.

    Day 3: Massed rush to duplicate the hover-keyboard.

    Day 4: First person arrives at work on hover-keyboard.

    Day 5: First competition hover-keyboard typing contest where the contestants type documents by manoeuvring over a small bump in an otherwise flat surface.

    Day 6: First death by hover-keyboard when rider flips in traffic.

    Day 7: Government knee-jerk overreaction bans all keyboards of any ilk to protect the children.

    Day 8: Unable to function because of the inability to use computers, society collapses.

    It'll all end in tears.

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  13. John Tserkezis

    The low noise version:

    A hose leading from the keyboard, to the users' mouth, blowing when more pressure is needed.

    A suitable cushion of air within the keyboard helps guard the user against head injuries when their foreheads come slamming onto the desk after they pass out from all that blowing. Or sucking.

    Like Bart Simpson said, "I didn't know something could suck and blow at the same time...".

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  14. alex cee
    FAIL

    Yes but

    does it have a bloody '#' key?

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  15. Mark .

    Re: I am going to disagree with the reg on this one

    But if this is something useful, then you can kiss goodbye to ever seeing it now, unless you restrict yourself to buying expensive PCs from Apple. If it's anything like their magnetic power connector patent[*], they won't be licensing it.

    [*] Apple invented magnets, don't you see! Nevermind that even a 5 year old puts prior art on their parents' fridge...

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  16. Zippy the Pinhead

    so if you clean it with a damp soapy cloth

    it'll blow bubbles?

    Actually I think I'd pay to see that... imagine the support call.

    There are bubbles coming out of my keyboard... click!

    hahaha

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  17. Mike Moyle
    Flame

    So let me see if I've got this straight:

    If Apple applies for a patent on what could be an incremental improvement -- the magnetic power connector, say -- Mark 1 trolling is to scream "Prior art! My uncle's step-brother's cousin's third-grade teacher had a magnet YEARS ago!", while if they apply for a patent on something genuinely new and untried, Mark 2 trolling seems to require screaming that it'll never work because no one has made it work before.

    I'd be curious to know under what circumstances Apple could apply for a patent and NOT get one of these Pavlovoan responses. (Actually, I expect that the answer is "None" -- some people simply appear to have too much of their emotional self-worth tied up in the "Apple SUX" battlecry to let that Apple bell ring without reflexively drooling... Sad, really.)

    Flame on!

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    1. Stephen Bungay
      Reply Icon

      Nope...

      You got it all crooked. The patent is for an idea, anybody can come up with an idea (like matter transmission or invisibility cloaks). The hard part is in actually building the invention. Like the patent held on the automobile by George Selden (1846-1922), the idea drawn on paper and described in legalese is not enough (as Henry Ford proved).

      IMHO if you patent it you had better darn well be actively trying to bring it into existence... else you're a stone in the shoe of progress, working to prevent civilization as a whole from moving forward.

      If you did actively try to sell and bring your product to market (like say time-delayed windscreen wipers (just to keep the car analogy going)) and one of those who turned you down then manufactures and profits from your hard work (you should have a working prototype and they should have signed something to keep them honest) then you have every right to take them to task for stealing your work.

      So in short Kudos to Apple for an actual invention, something that could be built. Now, make it work, as claimed, to improve the tactile feedback of slim devices. If you can't, then what is the point?

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  18. John Savard

    Prior Art?

    Since it's intended to improve the tactile experience, rather than being a fluidic sensor, I suppose that the Monotype keyboard won't count as prior art...

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  19. Hemisphere
    Joke

    Nicked from the Scottish Highlands

    Clearly, Jony Ive nicked prior art: as already historically established, it's the nexus between lips of Sir Wallace and the Bagpipes of said highland.

    And again, with mere sketches an English commoner, Sir Wallace takes a blow from His Royal Hammer...

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  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Related?

    http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37546/?a=f

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