Apple Patents Steering Wheel Remote Control For Safer 'Hands-Free' Driving

As smartphones and tablets become more ubiquitous in our ever more mobile world, driving becomes an increasingly dangerous activity. Local and federal governments are trying to enact "hands-free" laws to keep people's attention on the road, and devices and technologies like Bluetooth are doing their parts to keep drivers safe. Apple has created ways to make its iPhones completely hands-free (thanks to Siri and VoiceOver), but iPods, which are often the music players of choice now over in-car CD players and radio systems, still require a drivers' hands and attention to operate.
Apple hopes to make all drivers safer with a new invention that lets users wirelessly control the music playing in their car without ever taking their hands off the steering wheel. In a patent that was quietly granted on Tuesday, Apple describes a remote control that can be clipped onto any car's steering wheel, which borrows largely from the original iPod clickwheel but also adds a new touch-sensitive element to the design.
In its patent filing, Apple explained that most cars contain in-vehicle entertainment systems that can interface with a portable media device (like an iPod, iPhone or iPad), which essentially allows riders to control their music players through the in-car system. Yet some in-car entertainment systems can't control an external device, so users must use the controls on the iPhone or iPod itself. This can be extremely dangerous, as adjusting iDevices takes precious attention away from the road.
Apple's solution to this attention dilemma is a wireless remote control that can fit on any car steering wheel, which can be configured to control any portable media device. The remote is essentially a faceplate with a clickwheel identical to that of the iPod, except that this clickwheel is touch-sensitive. The sensors on the faceplate can detect pressure from a finger, but can also detect the location and magnitude of the pressure sensation thanks to a sensing mechanism based on capacitive sensing, resistive sensing, and surface acoustic wave sensing.
The remote connects to the steering wheel using hinged "clamping feet," which can accommodate steering wheels with various thicknesses in a few ways: It can move laterally along the steering wheel, and the hinges can also move mechanically closer or farther apart to clamp onto different-sized wheels. Since the clamps at the bottom of the remote can be moved to any point in the steering wheel, the faceplate itself can be rotated in 360 degrees to accomodate any orientation on the wheel.
This article comes from:http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/342436/20120517/apple-patents-steering-wheel-remote-control-driving.htm