New Apple patent filings

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office today published a continuation patent for Apple as well as two patent applications related to a 'bottom-loading' optical disc drive. The continuation patent, titled "Computer interface having a virtual single-layer mode for viewing overlapping objects," describes the Expose feature in Mac OS X to show and hide multiple windows simultaneously. The two new patent applications are titled "Access system for a portable device" and "Disk drive media access system," presenting readers with an overview of potential future notebooks that would implement a bottom-side optical disk drive to further slim down the portable computers.

The system would display an 'invert' icon indicating to users that the computer is entering an eject mode, displaying arrows accordingly to symbolize the action of inverting the notebook to eject the media. Future Apple notebooks could also contain a mobile motion module or "MMM," a triaxial gravitational force detector to provide protection for the laptop by detecting dangerous force-related events -- such as the laptop falling to the floor. Upon detecting such an event the system could instruct the hard drive to park the heads, thereby avoiding a dreaded 'head crash' which usually results in data loss.

by MacNN Staff