Amazon CEO's Latest Idea: Cellphone Airbags

Jeff Bezos files patent application for phone protection system
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 15, 2011 2:18 PM CDT
Amazon CEO's Latest Idea: Cellphone Airbags
In this Jan. 5, 2011 file photo, a person operates their iPhone in New York.   (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' next big idea is one for the klutzes of the world: cellphone airbags. According to a patent application obtained by Geekwire, the bags would deploy if the phone sensed, using radar, that it was falling (say, out of your pocket, where you really shouldn't keep the thing anyway). Per the patent, Bezos is also interested in other even wilder ways to protect mobile phones, like springs or a "propulsion element" that would deploy to ensure a safe landing on the airbag side of the phone. Click to see the application, which was filed in February 2010, but just became public. (More Jeff Bezos stories.)

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