Friday, April 27th 2012
Apple Seeks to Patent MacBook Air Design, OLED Brightness
Apple wants to hold patents to the wedge-shaped design of its MacBook Air, and an interesting technique to adjust OLED display brightness. The application for this patent passed through USPTO, on Thursday. The application describes claims over "wedge shaped top case", with a lid hinged to a base. The wedge-shape contributes to the user's impression of a device, its lightness, and its durability. Apple's MacBook Air bears this design, and reports indicate that so will the upcoming MacBook Pro series. Wired.com opines that the move is to block out partners of Intel's Ultrabook ecosystem from imitating the design.
Another more interesting patent application for a technique to adjust brightness of OLED displays. None of Apple's products, not even the iPod Nano, feature an OLED screen, yet Apple is frantically applying for the patent. While conventional LCD panels use an augmented illumination source (such as LED or CCFL), in OLED displays, there is no external illumination, and hence adjusting brightness is very tricky from a technical standpoint. The method Apple described in its patent claim consists of converting an image (frame) on a logarithmic scale along the palette, dimming it, and then displaying that dimmed frame. This patent could prove valuable for Apple, as the industry is beginning to transition from TFT-LCD to OLED flat-panel displays.
Source:
Wired
Another more interesting patent application for a technique to adjust brightness of OLED displays. None of Apple's products, not even the iPod Nano, feature an OLED screen, yet Apple is frantically applying for the patent. While conventional LCD panels use an augmented illumination source (such as LED or CCFL), in OLED displays, there is no external illumination, and hence adjusting brightness is very tricky from a technical standpoint. The method Apple described in its patent claim consists of converting an image (frame) on a logarithmic scale along the palette, dimming it, and then displaying that dimmed frame. This patent could prove valuable for Apple, as the industry is beginning to transition from TFT-LCD to OLED flat-panel displays.
57 Comments on Apple Seeks to Patent MacBook Air Design, OLED Brightness
I am by no means trying to justify Apple's patent trolling, but completely ignoring the drastic design similarities and saying stuff like 'ripped off from the guy who made the first laptop' is plain blind hating.
The X60 is a great laptop (for its time) but its nothing similar to the MBA, it has an optical drive (yes that is a HUGE difference) and is not natively designed (of the laptop not OS) for SSDs. Its doesnt have a slim profile and is as thick as the laptops back then, just that its smaller thats all.
Its an widely known fact that ht designs of UBs released by Intel is based on MBAs, so if you can't at least credit Apple for that then I have nothing else to say.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMiY1kSTHZw He systematically destroys iOS.
It's all the same, eh. That's great except you're getting screwed in the process. One option isn't good. Who is proud of having only one choice, well, what choice. That's it. Group think is horrible.
Then you're basically condoning unethical and illegal behavior to use a crappy device, wow.
And learn how to spell. Hell, it's built in to browsers.
So I don't question the OLED patent application because I don't know enough about how Apple plans to implement it in a new or different way.
I'm calling BS on the wedge design though. It seems sketchy to me for a number of different reasons. It references the basic shape of a palm rest on a keyboard in part or in whole that is not exclusive to Apple hardware and has been in practice for many years before Apple used it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jViSKlAeYYs&feature=related