We’ve seen thin-film speakers around, but generally they make for pretty poor replacements for regular speakers. I mean, think about it: for bass frequencies, something actually has to move, like, an inch back and forth. I don’t care what kind of promises these gadgets make about turning your wall into a speaker, they’re just going to be completely missing out on a whole segment of sound. But what’s a device that’s never had, and likely never will have, any bass? Yes, every mobile phone ever made.
It could be that they’re just looking into it, but it really makes a fair amount of sense. Instead of a tiny “real” speaker, the whole back of the phone could be a speaker, and perhaps even double as the vibrating element as well. Sure, your music won’t sound great, but it’ll sound better than whatever comes out of that tiny-ass little thing you’ve got right now.
The method they’re attempting to patent is a way of easily mass-producing electret loudspeakers and integrating them with, one assumes, a phone chassis. They get more into the actual theoretical implementation in a separate patent.
Sure, why not?
[via WMPowerUser]