If Apple resorts
to suing companies who copied their innovative ideas (as they claim) including
the controversial round edges design for its smartphone, Microsoft then swiftly
applied a new patent to US Patent Office to protect its idea before anyone else
does.
Microsoft’s
invention allows you to silence your device by whacking it off. An excerpt of
Microsoft’s patent application number DN/2012023138 or “Controlling Audio of a
Device” states that “There are a variety of circumstances under which it may be
desirable to quickly control a device without having to interact with a
traditional user interface. For example, often mobile device users forget to
set their mobile devices in a silent or vibrate mode and the device rings or
makes sounds at an inopportune moment.”
So in short,
every time your phone makes a sound like an incoming call and you’re in a
middle of a meeting, just whack your phone to turn off the speaker. It works
like how you turn off some alarm clock when it snoozes.
Types of audio
signals that could be silenced just by whacking includes: a ringing, a
ringtone, user-initiated audio, a tone, a played recording, an alarm, or the
like. On its application Microsoft provides twenty-six exemplary ways to whack
your device off.
Since there’s no
exact release date yet on Nokia’s Lumia 920 which runs on Windows 8 platform, should
we expect this feature to be included on Lumia? Microsoft must really work hard
in coming up with innovative ideas to save its mobile device from complete
havoc if they want to challenge Google and Apple.
Sources: Financial Review, PatentBolt
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