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11/22/2007, 7:10pm, EST

Thursday, November 22nd

Six new patents: Apple + Nike built-in?

The US Patent and Trademark Office today published six Apple patents, five of which revolve around the Apple + Nike initiative, and the sixth being related to optical media. Apple is looking to create an adapter to use with 8cm optical discs, so that they function inside of the 12cm-formatted drive slots that occupy most of the Cupertino-based company's computers. Two models appear in the patents, one that snaps together out of separate pieces, while another relies on a telescopic motion to close the adapter around the disk.

The Apple + Nike patents consist of the following: "Integrated Media Jukebox and Physiologic Data Handling Application", "System Including Portable Media Player and Physiologic Data Gathering Device", "Calibration techniques for activity sensing devices", "Portable media device with workout support", and "Communication protocol for use with portable electronic devices". The patents could potentially point to an iPod with a built in workout monitor that accepts voice commands, according to the details provided.


Filed under: iPod
Other story tags: patents, Nike+iPod

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Reinventing the wheel?
0
11/22, 10:19pm, EST
The 3" CD wheel, that is.

Um... Apple... these CD adapter things aren't new. Why do you need to patent a new design for something that costs under a penny to manufacture in the old-style?

http://www.amazon.com/Memorex-3-Inch-DVD-Adapter-3-Pak/dp/B000M52EW0
Mac Enthusiast
Joined Mar 2001
User is offline
Re: reinventing the wheel
0
11/23, 2:42am, EST
Could it have to do with this: *Note that the adapter may not work when used in a vertically-loading drive. Which is on the page that you provided a link to.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Apr 2007
User is offline
The Wii
0
11/26, 9:42am, EST
has a vertical loading drive & it has no problems loading the game cube discs. This may be a size issue though, there may not be a good compact solution for laptop slot loading drives. Apple is always trying to slim down & where adequate technology doesn't exist they take the approach of inventing it rather than settling. This is why their hardware is superior to the competition, because they don't settle for junk built on standards that haven't changed in like 30 years.

The success of Apple is good not because they will drive Microsoft out of the OS market (not gonna happen) but because their success is finally pushing the computer industry to do more than feed us the same old crap built on standards that were developed back when 32 bit processing was a dream.

It's not re-inventing the wheel, It's more like realizing wheels work better with tires, & then that tires are better if they are filled with air rather than being solid rubber. I get so sick of this throwing around of "re-inventing the wheel".
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Jun 2006
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