Some apples yesterday. It is unknown whether or not they contain keys

Apple have reportedly filed a patent for a piece of wacky space-age technology that will allow iPhone users to use the much-lauded device to act as a replacement for keys for the likes of the family car or the family home.

In the patent, which the Telegraph claim has been filed in the US of Americana, the following words appear…

“The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone. The external device may be any suitable electronic device such as a portable media player, personal data assistant or electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house or other physical area.”

Known as Near Field Communication, it’s a similar sort of technology that is used in Oyster cards and keyless car shenanigans by the likes of Lexus, Toyota and Mercedes – and Apple clearly want a piece of that action to jam into the iPhone at some point.

Perhaps the day will come when the iPhone will be an instant source of paying for goods as well as a way of getting in and out of your house. *GROTESQUE SEXISM ALERT* You might even be able to deploy it to start the wife off in bed on a Saturday night while you watch the end of Match Of The Day…

He only wanted to listen to the new JLS album...

Dodging advertisements is as easy as falling off a log these days. If you want to avoid commercial breaks in your favourite TV shows, just record them then sit down to watch 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, before fast -forwarding through the ads.

When it comes to the 30 second ads that increasingly crop up at the start of online videos, we just use the time to see how long we can hold our breath for. Much more fun than being forced to listen to someone jawing on for half a minute about the benefits of owning a Nissan Qashqai.

But now, a major company have filed a patent application for technology that will force consumers to watch ads, using what they’re calling an ‘enforcement routine.’ The technology will apply to almost anything that has a screen – computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices etc etc.

If and when the new technology is introduced, messages will crop up on the screen, demanding clicks from the consumer. Questions about the advert may be asked, ensuring that you’ve been paying full attention to the message being delivered by the advertiser.

A patent application has also been filed for a version for music players, where an audible prompt will ask the listener to press a specific button to move on to the rest of the ad. In both cases (audio and visual) if the demanding gizmo doesn’t get the answer it wants, the device will freeze until it gets a satisfactory response.

If you’re a bit thick or aren’t paying attention, you could be in for a rough ride – the patent application says that the tests “can be made progressively more aggressive if the user has failed a previous test.” Woop-de-doo!

If this disgusting little piece of technology does come into play, advertisers will be delighted and most right-thinking humans will be livid. But the inventors’ soft-soap claim is that the intention is to offer electronic products for lower prices, knowing that the advertisers’ message is being delivered as required. Purchasers of such equipment would do so willingly, knowing that for a lower price they’ll be expected to play ball with the advertisers’ whims.

Oh, we forgot to mention the name of the company that has pioneered this vile-sounding piece of technology. It’s Apple. Fucking Apple.

[New York Times]

Could THIS be the mythical iShoe? (Picture: DesignCrave)

People, bow down and prepare for the coming of the iShoe from Apple. The Register are reporting that Apple have filed a patent application for the snappy-sounding ‘Shoe Wear-Out Sensor, Body-Bar Sensing System, Unitless Activity Assessment and Associated Methods.’ Basically, it looks like it’ll be some kind of gizmoid that will tell you exactly when your footwear is fucked.

As the patent application clearly explains:

“Shoes (including sneakers or boots, for example) provide comfort and protection for feet. More importantly, shoes provide physical support for feet to reduce risk of foot injuries. A shoe is often necessary to provide support during intense physical activity, such as running, soccer and American football.

“As a shoe wears, physical support provided by the shoe decreases, thereby reducing associated protection from injury. When a critical wear level is reached, even if the shoe looks like it is not particularly worn, the shoe may not provide adequate support and may, in fact, cause damage to feet.”

For us, that’s what sets Apple apart from all the competition – we’ve always suspected that they’ve been REALLY concerned about the condition of our feet. As the application (or ‘app’ if you like) continues…

“In one embodiment, a shoe wear out sensor includes at least one detector for sensing a physical metric that changes as a shoe wears out, a processor configured to process the physical metric, over time, to determine if the shoe is worn out, and an alarm for informing a user of the shoe when the sole is worn out.”

So, it’ll be sort of like the warning sound that you get whenever your car is running low on fuel. Except it’ll be inside your shoes. Rumours are abound that this will be an enhancement to the Nike + iPod system that keeps track of your workouts by linking your shoes to your iPod but we hope there’ll be a version for Bill Gates’ Hush Puppies as well.

Like staring at a Magic Eye picture, you more you read this story, the more you may find yourself thinking it’s utter bullshit. Apparently it’s not. It still doesn’t make a lick of sense in the real world, though.

A US judge has ruled that Microsoft can no longer sell Word because of patent infringement. Yes, that Microsoft Word, which is pretty much installed on every desktop PC in the world. The complaint originates with a company called i4i and a patent they filed in 1994, eventually issued in 1998:

“A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology.”

What i4i claimed was that they created the method and architecture for reading XML documents, now commonplace in Microsoft’s 2003 and 2007 versions of Word. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas yesterday ruled in favour of i4i, ordering a permanent injunction that “prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML.” And then there’s the small matter of $290 million in damages that Microsoft have been ordered to pay. Carumba.

“We are disappointed by the court’s ruling,” said a Microsoft spokesperson, providing the understatement of the year as he patted down his trousers for a couple of million in change. “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict.” Microsoft has 60 days to comply with the ruling, but will no doubt spending their time and money on having the impossible-sounding injunction overturned.

[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

If Steve Jobs could patent every daydream or night terror he experienced, there’s no doubt he would. Not that it’d be much fun for the US Patent Office, as they process thousands of images of screaming owls and children with click-wheels for faces.

In fact, reality isn’t too different; in order to protect future products, Apple throw all sorts of ideas forward for patenting, in case one of them turns out to be useful. Silicon.com has pulled together ten Apple patents filed by Jobs & co, and rated them in terms of their likely development.

Some of them appear to offer tantalising glimpses into the future – full width touchpads, for example – while others are frankly stupid – clamshell iPhone, anyone? They’re sure to have the Apple fanboys raging across Skype long into the night.

[silicon.com]