Microsoft patents futuristic detachable screen phone concept
This isn't something that we expect to see on the market any time soon, but it is a phone concept that we'd love to play around with. Unfortunately, the idea of a phone with a detachable screen may now be the sole property of Microsoft because of a recent patent that has been granted. We first saw the idea in a concept video and the original patent filing almost a year ago.
The basic idea is for a mobile phone device which would be made up of two screens which could be connected together, or separated, but still able to sense the other, communicate and interact as needed. The video we saw definitely looks pretty cool, and there are a lot of nice multitasking options that could be very useful in a device like this, we just hope that when this sort of device does hit the market, it's using displays a bit bigger than what the video shows. We'd prefer the option to dual-wield 4" screens rather than what look to be something around 3.2".
Of course, as much as we'd like to see this kind of device, we hate the idea that this patent now belongs solely to one company, meaning any device from Apple or a Google partner wouldn't be able to be two parts which come together "to form a combined module", use "magnetic attraction", allow for controlling video or audio on one screen with the other, show contextual info on one screen related to the other, manipulate objects across the screens, etc.
That's a lot of functionality contained in one patent, which has been granted for a concept, not even a working prototype or actual physical device. But, that's the way the USPTO does business, so we can't really fault Microsoft for taking advantage of that process, as silly as that process may be.
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