Microsoft's Patented Smartphone Dock Cometh!

Microsoft's Patented Smartphone Dock Cometh!

Techtree News Staff, Feb 01, 2009 0930 hrs IST

Although plans are still on paper

Microsoft has filed for a patent that shows a multi functional dock designed to boost your smartphone's capabilities.

The design of the dock shows the inclusion of an output for an external display, an ethernet jack and a USB hub. Wait. An Ethernet Jack? On a port meant for smartphones? The only plausible reason why Microsoft added the Ethernet port in there is because the company thinks future smartphones will rival low end computers in computing prowess.

So, is Microsoft so confident about the smartphone's evolution as a mainstream computing device? Seems so. And its not just Microsoft. A certain Finnish manufacturer promotes its latest generation handsets as Mobile Computers. Remember the N95 advertisements?

The idea behind the port is to widen the scope of smartphone usability. Even today, a large number of users tend to use their phones as their primary computing device. However, the current design and space constraints have been stumbling blocks for these phones. Also, there was no option to connect external peripherals as you can do on PCs. This is where this new dock comes in to picture. But, docks are not entirely a new phenomenon as far as smartphones are considered. In fact many smartphones came with their own docks, not very long ago. However, they were of very little use and capabilities were limited to charging the phone to updating the firmware and transfer of files. This is where this new dock s set to differ fro its predecessors.

While all these plans are still on paper, the new technology does show a brief insight on how the smartphone juggernaut will tread along in the coming years.

There is no indication on when this idea develops from being just a drawing on a patent application.

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Microsoft Patented N95 Smartphone Dock

Discussion Board

(4) Comments

Grimrocker

,Bangalore, on Feb 11, 2009 10:44 PM

Quote from techtree newstaff - "A certain Finnish manufacturer promotes its latest generation handsets as Mobile Computers. Remember the N95 advertisements?" Like we don't know who THAT is...