Draft edition 8 articles on the reading desk
Technology, read through the patent record.
Read the work in progress. Follow the sources, explore the drawings, and look inside the inventions.
Starlink: the phone stays ordinary. The tower has to change.
A message leaves your phone for a receiver moving at orbital speed. SpaceX’s patents reveal how a satellite hears the request, corrects the radio signal and finds you again after the sky has moved on.
Neuralink: the hard part is staying connected
A thought-controlled cursor depends on delicate threads, a surgical handoff, sealed electronics and software that can recover from a wrong command. Neuralink’s patents reveal the work behind that connection—and a frontier where living cells become part of the interface.
The battery under dinner
Impulse and Copper put batteries under dinner. Copper’s patent counsel challenged Impulse’s pending claims twice. The rejection and narrowing that followed then became part of the paper trail in their lawsuit.
Knowing when to ignore you
Meta’s wristband turns subtle hand movements into commands. Its patent record reveals the harder problem: deciding when those movements should count—and how much of the system needs to wake up.
iPhone Duo: the work hidden in the fold
A sliding display. Glass that changes at the crease. An interface that responds to the fold. Apple’s patents reveal the physical and software choices behind a folding iPhone—and the gap between a disclosed mechanism and a finished product.
Figure × Tesla: the hand from the future
Terminator made the metal hand an icon of the future. Tesla’s newer filings reveal rolling joints, reorganized tendons and a grasp that uses the pinky. Figure’s competing architectures show how many choices remain inside a useful hand.
Tesla’s hand architecture, from cable fingers to the actuator bank
Follow the force from Tesla’s actuator bank through the wrist to the fingers. The expanded files reveal why the older hand’s international result changed—and why that favorable opinion does not settle the broader US claims.
Figure’s hands: three engineering bets, two grants, and a contested forearm
Forearm tendons, removable motorized fingers, and tactile fingertips: Figure’s files reveal several approaches to the hand. Two grants, special examination requests, and a continuing forearm rejection show how those choices become specific claims.