Now that we know what a phone isn't, what isn't a bike or a backpack?

I talk about phones a lot on this blog. You know, the things that have a cord attached to the wall and have the round twirly thing that you use to contact people?

OK, phones have changed a bit since I was a kid.

But at least a bike is the same as it was before, right? No. All Points Blog discusses an Apple patent application that changes things a bit:

The application for a smart bike reads like a description of a connected bike computer; that is, it collects the same data many inexpensive bike computers capture, but can share it among devices.

Well, we still have the backpack. You can't really change that. Oh yes you can:

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley developed a backpack that uses a combination of lasers, cameras, and location-sensing equipment to map out rooms and corridors inside buildings.

OK, it's time for me to adopt a new way to invent things. You may have heard of my previous way to invent things, which is to take ANY food, precede it with the word "fried," and follow it with the words "on a stick." (For example, fried asparagus on a stick.)

So my new way to invent things is to take any object, take an adjective that seemingly has nothing to do with the object, and put the two together. Examples include computing telephone, networked bicycle, and map-generating backpack. Additional examples include encrypted pencil, anti-tuberculosis lightbulb, and libertarian collie.

Once you've put your two words together, contact a patent attorney, make sure Oracle isn't already laying claim to your idea, and start picking out your Rolls Royce.

Your professional football stadium Rolls Royce.