盘点苹果最疯狂最具未来风格的10项技术专利

8月4日消息，苹果的专利申请一直是我们较为关注的一个话题，因为我们能够了解到这家公司背地里在捣鼓些什么。在苹果频繁的专利申请（几乎每周一次）当中，除了一些常规的技术创新之外，我们还看到了许多稀奇古怪的想法。日前，科技网站Business Insider就盘点了苹果最疯狂、最具未来风格的10项专利。

　　　　1.虚拟键盘
　　
　　
　　这项2012年的专利申请介绍了一种用于iMac和MacBook的虚拟键盘。通过借助一个平整的表面和设备内置的摄像头，苹果将允许用户在桌面上打字，同时看到自己手指位置的实时图像出现在屏幕上。这块键盘支持完全定制的按键，用户则可以为不同任务指派不同的键位配置。

　　　　2.3D iPhone用户界面

　　
　　
　　苹果在去年的另一项专利申请。这个3D界面能够使用距离传感器来总是显示出正确的深度和角度，无论设备的朝向如何。专利中同时还介绍了悬浮手势，这样意味着未来的用户即使手指不接触到屏幕也能够进行触控操作。

　　
　　3.笔记本/平板混合设备
　　
　　
　　苹果在今年申请了一项笔记本/平板混合设备专利，它有点像华硕的Transformer Prime或是微软Surface平板。有意思的是，专利描述了一种使用电磁铁来帮助显示屏固定在键盘底座上的方法，以及从底座向显示屏无线传输电能的能力。

　　　　4.触觉反馈设备
　　
　　
　　目前，大家都在讨论下一代iPhone在Home键上加入指纹扫描仪的可能性，而这可能只是开始而已。这项专利申请描述了苹果在触觉反馈方面的兴趣，它能让用户在按压虚拟按键时获得触摸物理按键的感觉。具体来讲，苹果提到他们想要让“用户感觉到按键的凹陷”。

　　　　5.智能自行车
　　
　　
　　早在2010年，苹果就已经有了智能自行车的想法。通过利用用户的iPhone或iPod、以及自行车自身的传感器，用户将能够获得速度、距离、时间、高度、海拔、坡度、心率等许多的数据。

　　　　6.智能触摸边框

　　
　　
　　苹果总是喜欢推动触控传感器的极限，而这项专利展示了苹果想要把触控部件移动到显示屏之外的愿望。专利当中的这种超级智能屏幕边框能够忽略用户无意中的触摸，同时允许应用来在屏幕之外获得触控输入。

　　
　　7.摇晃打印
　　
　　
　　苹果希望用户通过简单地摇晃设备来打开打印选项，而不是进入菜单系统。新的打印标准同时还介绍了轻松打印文档、图片、网页组合的能力，全部来自于一个菜单。

　　　　8.3D虚拟形象和表情
　　
　　
　　让iMessage系统变得更加私人化是个可能的发展方向。苹果在2011年申请的这项专利就展示了使用小型3D虚拟形象来显示一系列表情的系统。可别被这些粗劣的虚拟形象迷惑了，这项专利实际上带来的是无比实际的面部功能，或许还可配合PhotoBooth类应用的使用。某些关键词或短语将能够触发表情的显示。

　　　　9.可控制的透明显示屏

　　
　　
　　这项疯狂的专利描述了一种能够将摄像头、指示灯甚至指纹传感器隐藏在显示屏之下的技术。当需要时，显示屏将变成透明，从而显露出摄像头或指纹传感器，并允许其工作。在未来，这项技术可能会带来一款前面板被整块显示屏所覆盖的iPhone。

　　　　10.可穿戴计算设备

　　
　　

　　虽然大家都在等待传说中的iWatch，但早在2009年，苹果就已经申请到了一项革命性的可穿戴技术。它能够追踪健身活动、观察运动、训练、并和电视进行交互。图中所展示的就是苹果的传感器条带如何在搏击当中给出冲击反馈的。这款条带足够薄，能够被嵌入拳击手套当中，其功能的全面性也能够被用于体育运动之外。

Modern applications of evolutionary biology

There are numerous ways to apply evolutionary biology to our needs today, among them:

1.  prolonging the life of drug/chemical resistant compounds

2.  constructing evolutionary trees

3.  pathogen tracking

4.  industrial production of biochemicals and other agents

1. Drug resistance and chemical resistance in microbes, plants, and animals. In the latter half of this century, industry has been exceptionally good at providing compounds to kill viruses, bacteria, insects that eat crops and weeds that grow in crop fields. We even have an abundance of chemotherapy drugs to kill rogue cancer cells. Yet virtually without exception, our attempts to kill these organisms cause them to evolve resistance against the chemicals used to kill them. For example:

AIDS is an example of a virus that evolves to thwart its destruction.

·       Isolates of the AIDS virus with up to 15 different drug-resistance mutations are known, and the latest drugs are becoming ineffective.

·       Some strains of bacteria are resistant to all available antibiotics.

·       For multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, surgery is the only cure because antibiotics don’t work and only 50% of those infected survive.

·       Chemotherapy for cancer often fails because drug-resistant cells evolve during treatment.

·       Pesticide resistance and herbicide resistance is so common now that the financial incentive to make new pesticides and herbicides is break-even or worse.

Evolutionary biology suggests how best to prolong the useful life of drugs/chemicals. The amounts of chemicals used, what combinations of chemicals to use, and when to apply them are all questions that can be assessed from the perspective of preventing or slowing the evolution of resistance. In some cases now, the companies marketing the compounds have a financial interest in maintaining the longevity of their product, and they are funding studies by evolutionary biologists to develop wise use protocols. In other cases, however, economic and emotional forces dictate policies that speed up the evolution of resistance (e.g., patients demand and physicians write prescriptions for antibiotics for viral infections; antibiotics are used in animal feed).

Evolutionary trees help scientists track pathogens that cause disease.

2. Evolutionary trees Perhaps the core of evolutionary theory is that all life forms are connected to each other through common ancestry. Molecular biology has reinforced this view to a far greater level than was deemed possible even 50 years ago. On a short time scale, of course, we observe that this is true — everything alive comes from something else that is both alive and similar. One of the big developments in evolutionary biology over the last 2 decades is a methodology to estimate the underlying patterns of ancestry among living things. These reconstructions of evolutionary history are known as phylogenies, or phylogenetic trees, because they are branched somewhat like trees when drawn from bottom to top. We can use molecular data to estimate the common ancestries of life as far back as we like — for example, between bacteria and our mitochondria (the energy-producing organelles in our cells). But we can also use these methods to estimate much more recent ancestries. And these methods have found many worthy uses in tracking infectious diseases.

3. Molecular epidemiology — pathogen tracking To an epidemiologist studying infectious diseases, it is very useful to know how or where a person became infected with the disease. This information is perhaps the most basic fact we can use in preventing the further spread of a disease. For over a decade now, epidemiologists have been using DNA sequences of viruses to make phylogenetic trees and thereby track the sources of infections. Some of these examples are spectacular.

Law: A case of intentional HIV injection? 
In a highly publicized case in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1998, a woman claimed that her ex-lover (a physician) deliberately injected her with HIV-tainted blood (HIV is the virus that causes AIDS). There were no records of her injection and no witnesses. So how could her story be tested? Evolutionary trees provide the best scientific evidence in a case like this.

A woman’s claim to how she was infected with AIDS was supported by evolution.

·       HIV picks up mutations very fast — even within a single individual.

·       If one person gives the virus to another, there are few differences between the virus in the donor and the virus in the recipient.

·       As the virus goes from person to person, it keeps changing and gets more and more different over time.

·       Thus, the HIV sequences in two individuals who got the virus from two different people will be very different.

·       Thus, if the woman’s story were true, her virus should be very similar to the virus in the person whose blood was drawn but should be very different from viruses taken from other people in Lafayette.

·       That was exactly what the evolutionary trees showed; her virus appeared to have come from the patient’s virus but was unlike the virus taken from other people in town.

·       Since there was no way to explain how she would have gotten that patient’s virus on her own, the evolutionary analysis supported her story. (Incidentally, this case was the first use of phylogenetics in U.S. criminal court.)

Other cases Evolutionary trees have been used in many other cases of infectious disease transmission:

·       the transmission of the AIDS virus by a dentist to his patients

·       deer mice as the source of hantavirus infections in the Four-Corners area

·       the source of rabies viruses in human cases, leading to the discovery of a case in which rabies virus took at least 7 years to kill a person

·       whether recent cases of polio in North America were relict strains from the New World, were vaccine strains, or were introduced from Asia

4. Industrial production of biochemicals and other agents “Directed evolution”, i.e. artificially-induced evolution, has become part of the jargon in biotechnology:

Biotechnology allows us to give direction to evolution.

·       Artificially evolved enzymes and other proteins are soon to become part of household and medical technologies.

·       We will have protein-based drugs that, unlike the proteins inside our bodies, degrade slowly so that we don’t need to take so much of them.

·       Enzymes are being evolved to work in detergents (which they don’t normally do).

·       And as the stuff of futuristic novels, molecules are being developed to bind anthrax spores, ricin molecules, and other potential bioterrorism agents.

All of these developments take advantage of one or more forms of test-tube evolution. Armed with a knowledge of how natural selection works and combined with the right kinds of laboratory technology, people can create molecules to perform seemingly any kind of function. In some of the more spectacular cases, these test tube evolution methods have created enzymes from purely random pools of DNA (or RNA) sequences. Even 10 years ago, it was thought that a DNA enzyme was impossible, yet armed with only an understanding of how to apply test tube evolution, a DNA enzyme can now be created in days.