Patent
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Flip phones may have died out with MySpace, but if technology in a patent awarded to Apple this week eventuates into a commercial product, a future iPhone may bring them back. The document describes carbon nanotubes in flexible printed circuits, allowing devices that can bend along a seam.
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Boeing has been awarded a patent for a tilt rotor VTOL aircraft capable of carrying up to 100 passengers. By combining vertical lift of a helicopter with the speed and range of a conventional airplane, it could one day turn small airports into passenger hubs.
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Imagine you’re trying to find your car in a crowded parking lot. Simply say “locate car” and a tiny drone on your shoulder flies off and guides you to it. Amazon has been awarded a patent for such a drone, which may also be used by emergency personnel to locate missing children or spot fires.
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Though tools are available to remotely lock, clear data and track a stolen smartphone, Apple appears to be looking into ways to identify thieves. A patent awarded to the company last week outlines a system that would collect data on an iPhone thief and forward it to the owner or the authorities.
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There’s nary a Star Wars fan alive who hasn’t at some point swung a makeshift lightsaber around. A new patent awarded to Disney suggests that future visitors to Disneyland may get a more hands-on experience, using a physical lightsaber to deflect lasers fired at them by animatronic bad guys.
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City dwellers might like to drown out the world with noise-cancelling headphones, but some noises are better off not cancelled. Amazon has been awarded a patent for headphones that can recognize specific keywords, like the wearer’s name, and temporarily shut off the noise cancellation.
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Google's autonomous cars have been out for years, and so far their track record for safety looks good. But even for the best robot drivers, accidents do happen, so Google has patented a creative safety feature: glueing pedestrians to cars.
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A patent filing has surfaced showing a concept smartwatch interface from Samsung, designed to project a touch-enabled display onto the back of the user’s hand.
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A patent filing by Sony reveals its vision for a contact lens that not only records video and photo with a simple blink, but manages to store them right there and then on the user's eyeballs.
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Airbus has filed a US patent application for a new multi-fan jet engine design, which has the engine nacelles wrapping around the airplane's fuselage instead of suspended from the wing.
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A recently-granted Airbus pantent explores the creation of a new modular aircraft that would see detachable passenger cabins slot into a gap in an aeroplane's fuselage. The concept has the potential to revolutionize air travel, while providing significant savings for airlines.
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Boeing has been given a patent for a new kind of amphibious drone that's like something straight out of a classic spy movie. The aeronautics giant has a novel design for an unmanned aerial drone that can spontaneously convert into an unmanned submarine and go for a dive.
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