Game console makers apparently entertain every single idea, no matter how silly. The latest patent dreamed up by the big N is a football accessory that holds a Wiimote and nunchuk. The idea is that it could determine throwing angle, power and direction as well as body movements, which are then translated to the game.

It beats an inflatable horse, but do we really need to be breaking more TVs, with fake footballs? It’s just a patent, but you never know. We may see this one down the road. Good idea or not.

If you thought that the already available range of Wiimote attachments was crazy, check this out. They are not out of gimmicky ideas just yet. The patent system gives us a glimpse at an inflatable horse-riding controller that may or may not one day have geeks parting with their money.

The inflatable cushion has a spot for your Wiimote and can track your crazed bucking and thrashing as you shout yeehaw, translating it into horse movement. You would hold the nunchuk as if holding the reins.

So, how do you upgrade the old pizza order and make the whole process greener? US Patent 7,051,919 has the answer. The Pizza Box is perforated and tears, converting itself into plates. It’s the future of pizza and would help save water as you don’t have to wash the plates.

A simple yet effective idea. It’s called the Green Box. The bottom is also perforated so you can fold it into a new box that conveniently fits in your refrigerator. That’s damn convenient.

Apple has had some success with their unibody MacBooks, so it makes sense that they would start considering the possibility of introducing unibody iPods in the future. That’s what this recently released patent application suggests.

A unibody iPod could mean a lighter, thinner and tougher iPod, plus they save money by using fewer parts. Otherwise, the iPod classic shown here remains pretty much the same, but “the final part looks like it was machined down from a large thick slab of material,” according to Apple.

Remember Nintendo’s gaming robot ROB? Well, it looks like Sony has a new patent application for an add-on gaming robot, which will react to both the game and the user.

The patent was filed in June last year, for a robot that moves around the room detecting the environment, and then displaying the same on the integrated screen. The bot would be equipped with wheels, acceleration sensors, camera, microphone and speakers to carry out all of it’s sinister missions, like listening and responding to user commands.

Apple may be looking into a wireless remote wand to power the next generation of Apple TV media systems, offering the cursor on the Apple TV display the kind of accuracy a mouse gives the cursor on a PC. Just like millions of Nintendo Wii owners around the world.

Unlike the current 5-button remote for the current version of Apple TV, the wand would be capable of controlling a bunch of new operations and applications that may be available from the media system, including zoom operations, a keyboard application, an image application, an illustration application, and a media application.

It’s a common problem. You have your headphones on and you’re in a crowd, but the music is drowned out by the crowd. Well, check this out. This Apple patent takes a look at dynamic volume adjustment that is based on your surroundings, not your music.

Looks like a sound sensor would detect the ambient noise and adjust itself based on the situation. The system wouldn’t force you to keep it at it’s own preferences and would take into account the user’s own choices for volume when setting the sound level. Interestingly, the patent application was first filed shortly after the launch of the original iPhone. Obviously Apple isn’t using it to date, but they already use ambient sensors to detect light for the displays on the iPhone, iPod touch etc.

You know just the other day I was using my notebook and thought to myself what I really wanted was for my notebook to work more like my PDA from 2002. Well, OK so maybe I wasn’t thinking that, PDA’s died out years ago.

That didn’t stop O2Micro from getting a patent for a new PC architecture that allows a PC to be integrated with a PDA architecture. O2Micro says the system would place a secondary screen on a notebook that could be used to access data PDA style.

It’s far from the first time that Apple has filed patents for some kind of tablet computer. It’s been described in the past as a large iPhone, or as a full tablet, but these latest images look like a large mobile internet device that would be pretty neat. Most of the 52-page filing is in regards to the touchpad.

The device would be large enough to read easily and use, but also thin and light. One of the images has an interesting virtual keyboard. Some of the illustrations show a tablet Mac with a full windowing interface, where interface windows can be enlarged, shrunk, moved, and cycled, rather than being locked in place like the iPhone. Click the link for an interesting read on more details.

Sony’s patent application for a haptic touchscreen composed of “tactile pixels” shows former Sony Computer Entertainment chief Phil Harrison as the inventor. It also has a bunch of references to potential use in “a game device” and to “game events,” so it seems fairly obvious that it was developed as an idea for PSP.

The patent app describes a haptic feedback system that seems pretty complicated. The pixels themselves are capable of moving up and down, providing feedback to user actions. It’s certainly interesting, but we’re not gonna hold our breath waiting for this to hit the consumer market anytime soon. We wouldn’t mind being wrong though.

Gibson Guitar Corp. is accusing Activision of violating one of their patents with the popular Guitar Hero series of video games. The patent in question is owned by Gibson since 1999 and involves a system that would let a musician “virtually” participate in a pre-recorded concert while wearing a head-mounted 3D display with speakers. The music played on the instrument would then be recorded on a separate track and available for playback with the rest of the tracks to simulate playing in a concert.

Activision’s Guitar Hero does have a similar premise, however it’s played on a “pretend” plastic guitar and is a game where the player tries to mimic notes in concert represented on the monitor by graphical musicians in a concert. Activision is disputing the claim that they infringe upon Gibson’s patent and is asking the federal court to provide an official ruling.

A new patent application from Samsung was recently released by the USPTO showing what the company is describing as a mobile phone for media with a self-cradling function. The design shows an angled hinge in the middle of the candy-bar style phone which allows it to rotate and provide an angled display on top and an input pad on the bottom for some type of multimedia and/or gaming functionality.

Samsung also described is a pair of slide-out, detachable stereo speakers, a camera next to the display for possible video conferencing and a “plurity” of keys with a four-direction keypad.