Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, Apple
Patent Roundup: 'Hover' touch surfaces, liquid-cooled laptops
Two Apple patent filings have piqued interest this week: One for a touch surface that detects where your finger is hovered above it, and another for a liquid-cooled laptop.
The hover surface works by measuring light reflected off your finger at various wavelengths to figure out where it is over the surface. Apple uses a basic proximity sensor in the iPhone (so it knows when it's up against your ear), but this new technique would allow more precise recognition of objects hovered above a touch-sensitive surface. Unlike a graphics tablet, which requires a stylus, your finger or hand is likely the intended tool for this surface, as evidenced by the drawings.
Second, the liquid-cooled laptop, as with similarly-cooled Power Mac G5s from a few years ago, is designed to improve performance by reducing the temperature of the components of the computer. The patent describes wrapping a small heat pipe around various components in the computer that contains a liquid coolant.
Liquid-cooled G5s, though, were prone to leaks, which led to heavy damage and dismay for users of the systems. Apple entirely replaced many of the systems that leaked, rather than trying to repair them.
[Via Electronista and AppleInsider.]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick said 1:03PM on 12-04-2008
Any laptop which contains a heatpipe is already liquid cooled.
I don't know of any Apple laptop that has been made in the last 5 to 10 years that has not contained a heatpipe to connect the CPU and GPU to a heatsink somewhere in the case. This is like trying to get a patent on the wheel.
Reply
Ian said 4:49PM on 12-04-2008
This man speaks the truth. The patent summary doesn't provide any details that would indicate that they are bringing anything new to the table, either.
Johnny said 1:52PM on 12-04-2008
We're still running a liquid-cooled G5 that has never had any problems. I actually didn't even know this was a problem for anyone until I read it here.
Reply
Mike said 3:20PM on 12-04-2008
We've had 5 of them at the college I work at, and 4 of them leaked within the first 2 years. We fixed two of them, but when the next two failed we junked them, as it wasn't worth the time and money to fix them and have them fail yet again. At the time Apple claimed to have never heard of any problems with the model.