Microsoft has filed a patent application for an interesting method to silence a mobile device. A swift whack will tell the operating system to activate the silent mode. The patent is titled “controlling audio of a device” and the phone simply monitors data delivered by the accelerometer. So if the system detects specific kind of jolt, the speaker is turned off.
Unique implementation of accelerometer data has been introduced by numerous phone makers and identifying a whack may only involve a software update. There should be no specific hardware needed to enable this feature and it’s not known whether Nokia’s upcoming Lumia 920 already uses the feature. However, it still depends on whether Microsoft’s patent is referring to a software or hardware module. Today, Nokia and Microsoft need all kinds of interesting novelties they can lay their hands on to effectively compete with Apple and Google. Source.
