Microsoft’s laptops have evolved over time. A 2013 Apple patent illustrated that Apple had a MacBook with a detachable display first. Apple didn’t want it to compete with their iPad and so the project was killed. Microsoft copied the concept and ran with as noted in the image below. Years later and Microsoft redesigned their Surface Laptop to have a display that could slide over the keyboard for watching videos and playing games with the keyboard hidden.  

 

(Click on image to Enlarge)

Last Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a patent application from Microsoft that relates to a possible new feature coming to Surface laptops: A Haptic Trackpad Loudspeaker

Microsoft’s patent application covers a haptic trackpad loudspeaker comprising a printed circuit board (PCB) oriented within a recess of a device chassis, the PCB to control haptic and acoustic operation of the haptic trackpad loudspeaker; an array of resilient spacers bonding a first side of the PCB to a bottom surface of the device chassis within the recess; a touch sensor attached to a second side opposite the first side of the PCB, the touch sensor to function as a haptic surface and a diaphragm for the haptic trackpad loudspeaker; a haptic element attached to the first side of the PCB within the recess and above the bottom surface of the device chassis, the haptic element to drive substantially orthogonal oscillation of the touch sensor within the recess to selectively provide haptic feedback and acoustic oscillation; and a flexible sealing surround bonding a perimeter of the haptic trackpad loudspeaker to the device chassis to function as suspension for the touch sensor.

Implementations described in the patent filing further provide a method of operating a haptic trackpad loudspeaker comprising driving substantially orthogonal oscillation of the touch sensor using the haptic element at frequencies less than 400 Hz to provide haptic feedback, driving piston mode substantially orthogonal oscillation of the touch sensor using the haptic element at frequencies from 400 Hz to 3 kHz to provide acoustic oscillation, and driving distributed mode substantially orthogonal oscillation of the touch sensor using the haptic element at frequencies above 3 kHz to provide acoustic oscillation.

Implementations described in the patent further provides a mobile computing device comprising a device chassis including a centrally located recess, a left channel speaker, a right channel speaker, and the haptic trackpad loudspeaker to function as a center channel speaker.

For full details, review Microsoft’s patent application 20240377862.