News Apple Patent Shows a Mac Built Into a Keyboard

[Admin]

Apple puts forward the idea of a stout Magic Keyboard device which contains processor, RAM and storage. The device connects to any monitor or screen you might have with a single display, data and power connector.

Apple Patent Shows a Mac Built Into a Keyboard : Read more

 

[Deleted member 14196]

This is been done all the way back to the Commodore 64 but I still like it especially for an office environment

 

[hotaru.hino]

The fact this was granted a patent strikes me as absurd.

 

[TerryLaze]

The fact this was granted a patent strikes me as absurd.

The patent is probably about the single cable providing power, data and display in one.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The patent is probably about the single cable providing power, data and display in one.

It still strikes my as absurd. And even that "uniqueness" isn't really unique.

I can take my phone, plug in a USB-C based dongle or dock with PD-in, and boom, power, data, and display in one cable.

EDIT: If you want to point out the lack of a keyboard, at least in Samsung's Dex, the phone can still act as an "input" device.

 

[TerryLaze]

I can take my phone, plug in a USB-C based dongle or dock with PD-in, and boom, power, data, and display in one cable.

Yeah, but if nobody thought to put this into a single cable before then there you go, new patent, it doesn't have to be a groundbreaking idea to be a patent it just has to be something nobody else has done before.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Yeah, but if nobody thought to put this into a single cable before then there you go, new patent, it doesn't have to be a groundbreaking idea to be a patent it just has to be something nobody else has done before.

The "FTFY" is "just has to be something nobody else has patented before"

My Galaxy S10+ can do power, display, and data out of a single cable. Assuming this patent is recent, it's been done before.

 

[InvalidError]

The patent is probably about the single cable providing power, data and display in one.

Still absurd: USB4/TB3&4 over Type-C does everything-over-a-single-cable already.

Aggregating stuff is just about as trivial and obvious a thing as I can possibly imagine and trivial obvious stuff isn't supposed to be patentable.

 

[bolweval]

Add a monitor to the keyboard with a hinge and you've got yourself a laptop! LoLz

 

[TJ Hooker]

it doesn't have to be a groundbreaking idea to be a patent it just has to be something nobody else has done before.

US patent law also requires the idea be "non-obvious".

 

[hotaru.hino]

US patent law also requires the idea be "non-obvious".

I guess the people over there at the patent office don't know what USB-C or Thunderbolt are.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Apple puts forward the idea of a stout Magic Keyboard device which contains processor, RAM and storage. The device connects to any monitor or screen you might have with a single display, data and power connector.

Apple Patent Shows a Mac Built Into a Keyboard : Read more

Amiga 500 way ahead of its time. Left side has an expansion slot where I plugged a SCSI 50 pin HD into.
https://www.oldcomputers.net/amiga500.html

 

[mitch074]

I was about to suggest that Apple should sue Amstrad, Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, Thomson, NEC etc. for proactively encroaching on their patent 30-40 years ago... But there's that single-cable thingy.
It also means that if I build a computer that has a power in port and a Thunderbolt port, I'm actually okay - because the computer is supposed to work with a pair of cable. But it just happens that it can also work with power delivered through the TB4 cable. Oh Em Goodness!

 

[InvalidError]

US patent law also requires the idea be "non-obvious".

Non-obvious to people well-versed in the stuff in question.

Aggregating closely related stuff into fewer things should look trivial even to neophytes.

"Computer built into a keyboard" effectively describes every conventional laptop from the last ~30 years, just rip the screen off.

 

[InvalidError]

Amiga 500 way ahead of its time.

Apple's own Apple II from 1977 precedes this patent by another 10 years.