The world鈥檚 first laptops incorporating automatic protection against the damage caused by a drop have been launched by US computer maker IBM.
The new ThinkPad systems use an onboard accelerometer to detect a sudden fall. If an impact seems imminent, then within a tenth of a second the computer鈥檚 hard drive stops writing data and the read/write head is retracted to a safe position.
This is to protect the drive from damage that can result from jarring. An impact can cause the drive鈥檚 heads to skid across the magnetic disks used to store information inside a hard drive, creating unusable sectors and erasing data.
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The components most prone to damage are a laptop鈥檚 hard drive, its display and its keyboard. But losing information stored on the machine鈥檚 hard drive is the biggest worry for users, IBM believes.
The company compares its Active Protection System to the technology used in automobiles to deploy airbags during an impact. Worldwide product manager for IBM, Bill Iori, told NewsFactor: 鈥淭he airbag will save the most important part, the driver and passengers. In this case, [the stored data] comes out alive, even if the LCD doesn鈥檛.鈥�
Active Protection System technology comes with the Thinkpad R50 and T41 laptops. IBM plans to patent the idea.