Now here's a buzz-phrase for you: "human interface diversity antenna."

My first thought was this terminology in a just-published BlackBerry patent app was dreamt up by some overcaffeinated engineers (if you have ever worked w/any you know what I mean).

But then as I read U.S. Paten Application 20060192724, entitled "Mobile wireless communications device with human interface diversity antenna and related methods," I stopped saying "huh" and instead went "uh huh."

Unlike most other BB patent apps this one's Abstract didn't tell me much. It was only after I read through some of the substantive documentation that I went, "yea, I got it now."

From my read, this sounds like an invention that would enable a BlackBerry with two internal antennas- one for WiFi, one for cell- to choose one or the other antenna based on the position of the user's hand. This might work in situations where both types of wireless connections are available, and the user needs to choose.

Let the documentation explain:

"A plurality of antennas, preferably a pair of an antennas, are positioned in side-by-side relation preferably in the upper portion of the portable handheld housing. A human interface diversity controller is connected to the wireless transceiver to preferentially operate with the plurality of antennas based upon a relative position of the portable handheld housing with respect to a hand of a human user. "

In other words, this would employ touch sensitivity, likely via onscreen displays, to tell the chosen one of the BlackBerrys two internal antennas, yea, I want to be on the wireless network, not on the cell.

Here's more:

"The human interface diversity controller preferentially weights transmit signals, and/or switches at least one antenna on and at least one antenna off, for example, based upon received signal strength. The plurality of antennas may be operable on a same frequency, have different polarizations, have different conductive patterns and/or have different frequencies for transmit and receive. "

And here is how the the user would interact with these controls:

"The portable handheld housing preferably has opposing parallel front and back surfaces and the plurality of antennas are arranged in side-by-side relation extending in a plane parallel to the front and back surfaces. A display, user input device and an input/output transducer are carried by the portable handheld housing and connected to the transceiver. Furthermore, the transceiver and the plurality of antennas are operable in a LAN wireless network and/or a cellular wireless network. "