Samsung Patents a Smartwatch Back Panel Where the Health Sensor and Charger Share Wiring
Samsung is exploring a way to make the back of a smartwatch do two jobs with one set of wires, letting the…
2051 filings · category
Hardware patents
The Big Tech patents worth knowing in hardware, in plain English. Updated weekly from new USPTO publications.
Recent filings
2051 total
Sony Patent Explores Using Magnetic Force to Replace Springs in Controller Buttons
Every button on your controller has a tiny spring inside that pushes it back up after you press it. Sony is patenting…
Sony Patent Separates Real Objects From Screen Recordings for Independent Editing
When a camera films a person standing in front of a screen, the screen content and the person get baked into one…
Patent: Smaller Camera Design Captures Images Without a Traditional Lens
Modern lensless cameras skip the glass entirely and use a patterned mask instead, but that mask has always been bulky. Sony's latest…
Smart Ring Patent Reveals How Health Sensors Stay Pressed Against Your Skin
Getting accurate heart rate or blood oxygen readings from a ring depends on one deceptively simple problem: keeping the sensor touching your…
Sony Patents a Camera Lens That Repels Barnacles and Still Focuses Sharply
Cameras mounted on ships, drones, and utility poles share a common enemy: barnacles, algae, and other creatures that slowly grow over the…
Sony Patents an Image Sensor That Spots Sharp Edges Before the Photo Leaves the Chip
Most cameras figure out where the sharp edges in a scene are after the image data leaves the sensor. Sony is patenting…
Qualcomm Patents Technology That Builds Unified 3D Maps by Grouping Nearby Objects
Matching two 3D scans of the same room is harder than it sounds, and doing it wrong means AR objects drift, robots…
Apple Patents the Internal Mechanics Behind the Apple Watch Crown
Apple has filed a patent laying out exactly how the Digital Crown on an Apple Watch handles two very different kinds of…
Sony Patents a Camera System That Fixes Colors When Two Different Lights Hit the Same Scene
A candlelit dinner table next to a fluorescent kitchen is a nightmare for any camera's color system. Sony has filed a patent…
Sony Patent Turns Event Pixel Noise Into Usable Luminance Data
Most camera engineers spend their careers fighting sensor noise. Sony just filed a patent that treats that noise as useful data, specifically,…
Google Patent Reveals Earbuds That Detect When They're Actually In Your Ear
Google is patenting a way for earbuds to figure out not just whether you're wearing them, but whether you're actively fiddling with…
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