MICROSOFT appears to have patented the act of upgrading a PC with what it calls a "modular computing device".
The concept includes the use of stackable components to create a simpler PC upgrade process for the end user.
The patent was filed on 7 July 2015 but surfaced in published form only late last week. It features a "display device physically and communicatively coupled to the housing via a hinge, and one or more display hardware elements disposed within the housing that are configured to output a display for display by the display device".
The filing also describes a "computing modular component", also in a housing connected to the display component, as a well as a "processing system" and memory "disposed within the housing".
The upshot of all this, basically, is a Lego-style snap-together PC, taking the existing concepts of computers that can be upgraded by a user but doing away with the need to open anything up.
Such a move isn't new, to say the least. Intel has worked on a similar line with its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) mini-PC range for several years. The NUC is not stackable with single, enclosed units like Microsoft's concept, but features small, laptop-style components that simply snap onto the main board with minimal use of screwdrivers or transferable skills.
Gaming PC firm Razer introduced a concept very similar to Microsoft's in 2014 with Project Christine, a stackable, component-based idea based on units slotting into a central vertical frame.
Microsoft, however, may take the concept even further than just desktop PCs, as the filing goes on to mention that "a computing device may be configured as a computer that is capable of communicating over the network, such as a desktop computer, a mobile station, an entertainment appliance, a set-top box communicatively coupled to a display device, a wireless phone, a game console, and so forth".
In which case, devices built on the technology may "range from full resource devices with substantial memory and processor resources (e.g. personal computers, game consoles) to a low-resource device with limited memory and/or processing resources", according to Microsoft.
This paragraph goes on to cite traditional set-top boxes and hand-held game consoles. There is also talk of gesture-based input as an option.
Patent applications can often be seen as catch-all solutions to safeguard a wider execution of an initially sound concept.
This is effectively an attempt by Microsoft to bring the hardware landscape into the same overarching philosophy as concepts such as Universal Apps, which allows applications that share APIs to bridge different hardware and Windows platforms yet retain cross-functionality, and Continuum, which involves plugging a Windows Phone into a monitor to offer "desktop functionality".
It's unlikely that we'll break off a couple of parts of a desktop PC any time soon and leave the house with an instant smartphone, but there's a definite sense that Microsoft is looking at the future of the hardware market in the right way as it continues to fracture and deteriorate.
The PC market fell 8.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015 and tablet sales are slowing, so it seems fairly clear that a proliferation of devices, often without solid use cases, is beginning to cause the device market to stagnate.
Reinterpreting the endpoint as a single device that can be rebuilt on a user's whim is enticingly organic. It's certainly a step in the right direction for a device market currently reaching the limits of innovation even if such a concept is only a positive interpretation of what could easily be a simple legal safeguard by Microsoft.
At the very least, Microsoft could come to the aid of anybody who's terrified of screwdrivers or has never heard of an anti-static wrist strap. ยต
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