Sony applies for "liquid airbag" patent

Sony has recently applied for a patent on a new "liquid airbag" technology which the company hopes will protect data such as memory cards and hard drives from physical damage. Now, we've seen the word airbag tossed around (no pun intended) in regard to data protection before, but this concept differs a bit from systems that have been used in the past. The technology works by surrounding media with a liquid-filled case outfitted with "biasing units", used to maintain the orientation of the drive, and irises, which would detect movement and configure themselves -- using the liquid -- according to the direction of pressure. As the walls of the casing were subjected to force, the irises (which are created by small protrusions on the bag) move their protuberances closer together to provide increased shock absorption by adding resistance to the flow of fluid. No word on Sony's plans for the system, although we suspect the first order of business will be liquid-airbag protected Memory Sticks.

[Via ITworld]

[Tyk @ Jul 4th 2007 11:45AM]

Once SSDs take hold in laptops, this will be pointless.

[johnnyspliff @ Jul 4th 2007 11:53AM]

Isn't the whol "air" part of this redundant? The point of an airbag is it uses air. Why not just call this a "liquidbag"?

[shakman @ Jul 4th 2007 12:04PM]

they sould call it a whorebag... it'll screw you for your money with technology that will be virtually redundant soon after it's introduced thanks to the growing size of SSD's and their native resistance to shock. everyone should just wait for SSD's to go mainstream and prices to "crash" instead of trying to protect thems old school HDD's from crashing. in the meantime, get in the habit of backing up regularly.

[relacks @ Jul 4th 2007 12:17PM]

More pointless research that will result in wasted R&D dollars that will be accounted for in more inflated Sony pricing schemes. In addition to being pointless, it would make the product heavier which I feel is undesirable.

[MrGam3r @ Jul 4th 2007 12:19PM]

Sony: "Our new line of Vaio laptops have liguid airbags. So if you happen to be surfing the web while driving, these airbags will be very safe should you get into an accident. But our batteries will probably just blow you up anyways."



But seriously this could be helpful......

[Ayle @ Jul 4th 2007 12:35PM]

"we suspect the first order of business will be liquid-airbag protected Memory Sticks" I don't know how an airbag will prevent my ms to get snapped in half when I sit on it by mistake....

[Jesse S @ Jul 4th 2007 1:03PM]

Summary of comments:

LOL SUNY SUX, DIS WIL B USELES B/C EVRY1 WIL HAS $1000 SSD's SOON!!!!11!1!1111!!!11

[BobTurbo @ Jul 4th 2007 11:51PM]

Argh, that is what I was going to say. This is pointless because I would rather a 32GB SSD than a 10 million GB magnetic HDD surrounded by some strange liquid.

[Spider1981 @ Jul 4th 2007 2:59PM]

Am I the only one who thought article graphic was a HDD sitting on top of a sack of potatoes at first glance?

[Temple @ Jul 4th 2007 3:00PM]

These SSD comments are pretty ridiculous and ignorant. Especially being that Sony is one of the few companies that push SSD in many of their laptops and ultra-portables.

Also, SSD will always be a step behind in price and performance compared to HDD, which is also advancing at a significant pace relative to SSD.

Aside from that, the details of this are unknown. size, weight, or price. It obviously has more uses then HDDs, since so many electrical components can be suseptiable to damage.

[Tom @ Jul 4th 2007 5:31PM]

Hey, I might not be a Sony fanboy, but props to them for trying to protect our data. Most companies look at your broken product and charge you it's MSRP to fix it, should you break something. Ever RMA a hard drive while under warrenty? It's a pain in the ass. What Sony's doing is fantastic in the fact that hey - instead of making our customers pay us more money to fix their product, we'll just avoid everything all together, and enable the product to be more resilient.

Very cool, Sony. And no - I'm not buying a SSD for another 10 years most likely. So, this tech is useful! Until I see a $100 500GB SSD, I won't even think twice about one. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, either.

[XSportSeeker @ Jul 4th 2007 8:10PM]

This could be interesting... but I wonder if this won't result in too much extra weight for the HDD.
Could be a nice solution for those Toughbooks, and stuff for military use (or people who needs HDDs to be really resistant).

[tekdroid @ Jul 4th 2007 10:28PM]

as much as I hate it, spinning HDs will be with us for at least the next 5 years.

Solid-state flash drives are NOT reliable workhorses, contrary to populalr misconception. Until they find out how to make rewrites infinite on those things (and reduce prices considerably) the traditional HD will rule Joe User's computer for the forseeable.

[billy bob thorton @ Aug 9th 2007 1:00AM]

actually prices ARE falling dramatically. and durability is close to 5 million cycles. tell me which one of your hard drives has infinate rewrites. They don't. most drives have a life span of 3-5 years under moderate use. 128gb SSDs are expected to drop below $1000 by next year with 256gb models on the way. it's really only a matter of months before these are optional equipment on most lightweight notebooks. just a few years ago (2002) I (my company) paid over $300 for a 1gb IBM micro drive. pricing will catch up rather quickly once uninformed people stop speading "misconceptions" about reliability.

FYI: alienware already offers an SSD option in their laptops