The PalmPilots That Never Were
Over the years, Palm made some really cool products--and considered making some really weird ones.Posted by Harry McCracken | Thursday, April 29, 2010
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When HP bought Palm on Wednesday, it got itself a powerful mobile operating system, two phones (plus whatever’s in the pipeline), numerous talented people, and a venerable brand. And it also scored fifteen years’ worth of mobile technology patents. Some of them resulted in iconic products. And some of them…well, didn’t. I’m sure Palm leveraged some of the ideas in the patents you’re about to see. But it also protected a bunch of concepts unlike anything that has ever carried the Palm name–so far.
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HP gains some weird patents with Palm purchase | LogicHP - HP Laptop Coupons, Deals, Reviews, News, and Forum Says:
April 30th, 2010 at 5:29 pm[…] are the rights of everything they have made, as well as everything that Palm has not. According to Technologizer (vis Gizmodo), HP now has patent to a whole slew of bizzare and silly patents of phones that were, […]
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The Weird Palm Patents HP Will Soon Own | Gizmodo Australia Says:
April 30th, 2010 at 5:41 pm[…] McCracken has gone through the trouble of compiling some of these PalmPilots that never were over on Technologizer. Most were filed in the 1990s and they range from the curious yet sensible, like a wall mounted […]
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The PalmPilots That Never Were | JetLib News Says:
May 1st, 2010 at 5:20 am[…] that converts into a joystick, and pre-Treo hybrids of phone and PDA that just didn’t work. I rounded up some fascinating examples.” It’s worth clicking through the obnoxious slide-show format to see […]
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Patentando el cielo | Federratas Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 5:49 am[…] de Palm por parte de Hewlett-Packard el sitio Technologizer publicó un artículo mostrando patentes que ilustran las ideas que Palm exploró en su historia. El artículo está presentado de una manera muy molesta (hay que visitar 11 páginas […]
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Palm 那些失落的有趣创意 | ifanr 爱范儿 ♂专注于拇指设备的小众讨论 Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 2:56 am[…] HTC 和 Nokia 垂涎的专利也是 HP 的一大收获。前些日子 Technologizer 挑选了一些 Palm 专利中未曾实现的内容与我们分享。下面就让我们看看 Palm […]
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And That’s What You Missed on Technologizer Says:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:36 pm[…] I also used the HP-Palm deal as an excuse to look at old Palm patents for devices which were never built. […]
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Ein Android-Konkurrent weniger: HP stellt WebOS und TouchPad ein | androidnext Says:
August 18th, 2011 at 2:13 pm[…] ist auch das Patent-Portfolio (obwohl Palms Ideen zuweilen recht skurril waren) aus dem Palm-Nachlass sehr interessant für andere Konzerne. Das dürfte bereits beim […]
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Tien Palm pda’s die nooit uitgebracht zijn | webOSclub Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 11:43 am[…] Een telefoon, waar je het pda-deel van kon loskoppelen […]
May 1st, 2010 at 5:42 am
I think #11 was actually built; I have one if I remember correctly.
May 1st, 2010 at 7:25 am
The slideshow layout is complete crap. Everything in all 11 “pages” (which exist only to increase advertising serving ratios) could have just as well been one single long page. And had it been one single long page it would have been more useful and I would have bothered to have read through the entire site. As it is, I’m leaving after page 1.
May 1st, 2010 at 7:36 am
I have # 11 in my hand right now. atached to my lifedrive. it was a real product
May 1st, 2010 at 7:48 am
The joypad would make more sense if you could just plain push the whole stylus into a depression and use it as a joystick rather then unscrewing it.
May 1st, 2010 at 8:12 am
#5: “a Webcam-equipped, multimedia-enabled PDA that permitted for videoconferencing and WebEx-like online meetings. Neat–and probably a tad ahead of its time given that the patent dates to 2002, before the dawn of 3G broadband and modern smartphones. Even in 2010, I’m not sure if we have anything quite this ambitious.”
How about the huge pile of smartphones that have a camera on the same face as the screen, for video conferencing? My Nokia has one. So did my last Nokia. I can (for example) pull up a PowerPoint presentation and watch it during the video conference, or have the web browser open and connect to a web-based conferencing system. Plenty of phones can do this. It’s actually a pretty good idea.
May 1st, 2010 at 8:21 am
I like split keyboards; they work well, either in fold-out form factors, or on tablets. One major problem with the iPad is that its on-screen keyboard is too large to thumb-type on. Splitting it into a left and right half on-screen keyboard would fix that.
May 1st, 2010 at 9:14 am
#6, is from Isaac Asimov’s “End of eternity” novel.
May 1st, 2010 at 9:39 am
I also had #11, worked quite well. I used it for taking notes in class–far more portable than any laptop of the day.
May 1st, 2010 at 9:55 am
I had and liked a Palm folding keyboard myself–they sold one based on the Stowaway, and then later their own design–but did they ever have one with a numeric keypad like that?
May 1st, 2010 at 10:04 am
#9 is a wigi board.
May 14th, 2010 at 10:04 am
#9 = digital Ouija board
May 20th, 2010 at 2:27 am
I used to carry a Palm III C, and a Motorola Star-Tac phone, felt kind of like a member of the crew of the Enterprise. When palm first put the Palm OS on a clam shell style phone, (I don’t remember the name though) I wanted that phone so bad, but the phone never really took off.
Then, they came out with the Treo. WOW! (I still have my 600, 700, & 755)
I also have the IR version of the folding keyboard, and you’re right. Great for taking notes in class and sending text messages during lectures (never got caught), just had to turn off the speaker and the vibrate.
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:08 am
Video Conferencing is really a very convenient and very fast way in keeping in touch with your business partners..:.
December 31st, 2010 at 9:19 am
No 9 application unclear? Far as I recall, it's for communicating with the dead.