Picture your smartphone flying through the air in slow motion. You’ve done it again. You knew carrying that cup of coffee, your keys, your dog’s leash, your purse, your briefcase and your phone at the same time was a bad idea, but you did it anyway. As your phone lands screen-down in the gravel, you wince and say to yourself the same thing every owner of a dropped phone says to themselves: “Oh god, please don’t let it be shattered” or “I really should have just gotten the insurance”.
Thanks to a recent invention from the brilliant minds at Amazon, this scenario might not scare you as much in the future, even if you don’t have phone insurance. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, recently filed a patent for Amazon’s latest creation: an airbag for your smartphone.
As odd as it seems, this brilliant idea may be just what the smartphone industry has been waiting for. Using data from the already built in accelerometer, gyroscope and camera, the airbag would then determine whether or not a drop is fast or hard enough to damage the phone. If the sensors determine the need is great enough, the airbags would then deploy and could even utilize air jets to change the trajectory of the phone during free fall.
Although Amazon has yet to announce when this technology will be available for widespread use, it is clear that there will be a huge market for such technology as smartphones continue to become more prevalent.
Some experts speculate that such technology could do away with bulky and cumbersome cases altogether while others think that the phones themselves would become a burden if they were large enough to conceal the airbag and it’s inflation apparatus. Regardless, Amazon’s founder has filed the patent as is obviously going ahead with the idea. After all, nothing it worse than a cracked smartphone phone screen.