Google's latest patent lets you talk on your smartphone upside down

A new Google patent aims to help those of us struggling to tell a smartphone's top from its bottom.

The patent outlines a smartphone with both a microphone and speaker at each end, allowing someone to hold the device upside down and still be able to talk normally.

Gyroscope or accelerometer sensors inside the device would detect the phone's orientation, allowing it to activate the correct speaker and microphone for how the handset is held at any given time.

The patent does not discuss how a device would cope with someone holding their smartphone sideways while lying down.

Smartphones do tend to have a rather symmetrical design so perhaps this is a frequent mistake when answering the phone, frequent enough that Google felt the need to patent the idea.

Google is generally more known for their software than hardware, so the likelihood of seeing this patent come to fruition is questionable. If nothing else though, it is an interesting idea for smartphones to implement, even if the convenience doesn't justify the cost of additional parts.