Recent A le patents for phone, PDA, new cube?

Here we go with the A le patent game again, and this time around it looks like we have blasts from the past and the future. Engadget first tracked down a patent filed by A le yesterday (pictured right) for "A cubical computer housing a embly comprises first and second ends and four sides, which define an interior compartment for housing the various computer component." Could this be the comeback of the cube? A le obviously ha 't let the concept go gently into that good night with their cubed New York store, but since this patent is so fresh, don't expected anything to come of it anytime soon - if ever.

The next patent is a bit more interesting in part because A leI ider has quite a few juicy details, but also because it was filed over a year ago and references a phone-like A le device which has received almost co tant eculation during that time.

Check out a patent shot, published March 2006, that A leI ider just found (thanks Jon!):

AI interviewed Shaw Wu, an American Technology Research analyst, and agged plenty of quotes along the lines of how likely this device is, as well as the po ibilities of this being a multi-functional device, switching between a phone, game player, PDA, G or even a remote control. eaking of multi-function and patent ambiguity, however, we aren't finished yet.

This is yet another patent Engadget dug up, and this one was originally filed in April 26th of 2005, but published just yesterday, September 7th 2006. From the patent: "By way of example, the portable electronic device may corre ond to tablet PCs, PDAs, media players (music, images, video), game players, telephones, cellular phones, mobile radios, cameras, G modules, remote controls, and/or the like."

So there you have it. What is 'it,' exactly? Who knows, maybe A le's ecial event next week will be a multi-functional movie playing, G tracking, music listening, picture taking, game playing, thingamaPod (where's the 'homework doing' feature?). Or it could just be a big update to Front Row - we'll just have to wait.