Interesting Apple Patents
Not so long ago, I came across a topic “Not all patents are equally useful” about how Apple patented sound management in the browser and wrote a general topic about more interesting / useful patents.
Therefore, having some free time, I decided to fulfill the promise. I want to say in advance that the existence of a patent does not at all indicate that the company has an industrial design, or at least developments in this area.
In all portable devices that I saw, to save energy in standby mode, the display is turned off. However, such an approach may make it difficult for the user to determine the status of the device, and in the dark it is not possible at all without turning on the display backlight. Therefore, a missing message, a bell or a low battery may be ignored.
To solve this problem, Apple proposes the use of a double backlight in a system where a secondary backlight of low power will be placed behind the main backlight system. As planned, the secondary illumination may appear through transparent or semi-transparent parts of the display. Thus, it will be possible to see system information on the screen even when the main backlight turns off.
')
The primary backlight system can block light from the secondary, with the exception of one or more areas of the display. Thus, the size and shape of the status indicators can be determined by forming transparent or translucent regions in the main backlight system. Similarly, it would be possible to adjust the color of the status indicators. In addition, the light source in the secondary lighting system might either blink or create a pulsating effect.
The undoubted advantage of this solution is that users could see the notification at any time without even touching the device. Plus, the patent described the possibility of adding a special API for developers.
This development would suit, first of all, mobile phone users. For example, in the city noise, he may not call strongly enough, and in a quiet place a very loud call will be inappropriate at best. Another example is the following: you work with a laptop in the house, and then move to a noisier room - in this case, the sound from the speakers will simply not be heard.
When playing music, a special sensor could measure the sound between songs and during their playback to determine the volume of the environment. When detecting noise in the room, the system could increase the speaker volume, and if it is quiet in the room, lower it.
In addition to the patent, the concept of a jack that can clear the audio jack from accumulated dust or debris is proposed. To do this, it is proposed to add a hollow channel to the usual 3.5 mm jack through which to supply normal or compressed air, thus blowing the connector.
And what is very useful - anything can happen in life :)
At the moment, the iSight webcam is almost on the top of a MacBook Pro, iMac or Cinema Display (and indeed in other devices). Therefore, when making a video call to another person using Skype (Google Talk or any other application), there may be some difficulties: the user has to look at the interlocutor (or the monitor), but not at the camera lens. In this case, the conversation may seem a bit unnatural.
To solve this problem, Apple offers to embed a webcam behind the display in one of the multiple patents, and implement the display as a sandwich from several different layers that will allow the camera to capture the image. As I understand it, this is achieved by turning them off. But since the "flicker" will occur quickly enough - the user will not notice this. Therefore, any person will be able to communicate looking directly at the interlocutor's eyes. Well, or almost straight in the eye :)
Agree, it sounds a bit futuristic. Typically, such things are either described by science fiction writers in their novels about the distant or not very future, or appear again in science fiction films. In fact, there is nothing surprising here: sensors that scan fingerprints have long existed - they were installed on mobile phones (even at one time there was an advertisement of a certain phone for “real kids”) and on laptops of a class above average.
True Apple offers to hide them from prying eyes. The company cannot but be concerned that Passcode on the iPhone / iPod touch can provide only the minimum level of data protection - only 4 digits, but for real paranoids you can turn on the function of deleting all data after ten incorrect attempts.
Therefore, the company is trying to think of more serious methods of preventing unauthorized access to the device and personal information. And they want to do this without distracting the user from work.
How to organize it? Yes, very simple. In total, you just need to embed the sensors in the place of the device, according to which the user will precisely “crawl” with a finger. For example, it could be a phone slide slider (“Slide to unlock”), a touchless touchpad, or frequently used keys on a laptop — probably, this is the Power key :)
The patent assumes that sensors can be built into laptops and desktops like the iMac to recognize the face of the user sitting at the computer. In addition, the company thought about the recognition of voice and even genetic sequences by collecting DNA samples.
And as an alternative to biometric characteristics, less obvious lock-locks can be used: for example, tilting the device in certain directions or forcing iPhone users to click on icons in a certain sequence or use special gestures to unlock the device. It remains to add a puzzle for 1000 pieces and diffur :)
This is my favorite :) With this controller, the user could control the cursor on the TV screen just as computer users do - in a two-dimensional plane. Unlike the current five-button Remote Consoles, the Magic Wand could control many new operations and applications used in the media system. For example, these are scaling operations, management of applications for viewing photos and videos, listening to audio.
In addition, one could try using such a controller to get rid of some physical buttons. For this purpose, special gestures are used in the patent: rotation and movement of a stick, rotation or any other actions.
These gestures can be used for CoverFlow technology, leafing through the media library, you can reduce / increase thumbnails of photos, you can scroll a movie or song, etc. Another application would be the ability to work with an on-screen keyboard. Instead of the usual up / down / left / right navigation, you can more or less conveniently enter text or use search.
As a result, the patent contains about 64 pages describing the idea. I can not say anything at the expense of convenience, but I am sure that children will be delighted with her!
That's all, in principle, what I wanted to tell. The material was collected for quite a long time and from different sources.
Let's see how readers react to the topic. If that - I will transfer to the thematic blog.
Therefore, having some free time, I decided to fulfill the promise. I want to say in advance that the existence of a patent does not at all indicate that the company has an industrial design, or at least developments in this area.
Always visible status indicators on the mobile screen
In all portable devices that I saw, to save energy in standby mode, the display is turned off. However, such an approach may make it difficult for the user to determine the status of the device, and in the dark it is not possible at all without turning on the display backlight. Therefore, a missing message, a bell or a low battery may be ignored.
To solve this problem, Apple proposes the use of a double backlight in a system where a secondary backlight of low power will be placed behind the main backlight system. As planned, the secondary illumination may appear through transparent or semi-transparent parts of the display. Thus, it will be possible to see system information on the screen even when the main backlight turns off.
')
The primary backlight system can block light from the secondary, with the exception of one or more areas of the display. Thus, the size and shape of the status indicators can be determined by forming transparent or translucent regions in the main backlight system. Similarly, it would be possible to adjust the color of the status indicators. In addition, the light source in the secondary lighting system might either blink or create a pulsating effect.
The undoubted advantage of this solution is that users could see the notification at any time without even touching the device. Plus, the patent described the possibility of adding a special API for developers.
Automatic sound / ringtone volume adjustment and self-cleaning 3.5mm jack
This development would suit, first of all, mobile phone users. For example, in the city noise, he may not call strongly enough, and in a quiet place a very loud call will be inappropriate at best. Another example is the following: you work with a laptop in the house, and then move to a noisier room - in this case, the sound from the speakers will simply not be heard.
When playing music, a special sensor could measure the sound between songs and during their playback to determine the volume of the environment. When detecting noise in the room, the system could increase the speaker volume, and if it is quiet in the room, lower it.
In addition to the patent, the concept of a jack that can clear the audio jack from accumulated dust or debris is proposed. To do this, it is proposed to add a hollow channel to the usual 3.5 mm jack through which to supply normal or compressed air, thus blowing the connector.
And what is very useful - anything can happen in life :)
Hidden webcam behind the screen
At the moment, the iSight webcam is almost on the top of a MacBook Pro, iMac or Cinema Display (and indeed in other devices). Therefore, when making a video call to another person using Skype (Google Talk or any other application), there may be some difficulties: the user has to look at the interlocutor (or the monitor), but not at the camera lens. In this case, the conversation may seem a bit unnatural.
To solve this problem, Apple offers to embed a webcam behind the display in one of the multiple patents, and implement the display as a sandwich from several different layers that will allow the camera to capture the image. As I understand it, this is achieved by turning them off. But since the "flicker" will occur quickly enough - the user will not notice this. Therefore, any person will be able to communicate looking directly at the interlocutor's eyes. Well, or almost straight in the eye :)
Hidden biometric protection
Agree, it sounds a bit futuristic. Typically, such things are either described by science fiction writers in their novels about the distant or not very future, or appear again in science fiction films. In fact, there is nothing surprising here: sensors that scan fingerprints have long existed - they were installed on mobile phones (even at one time there was an advertisement of a certain phone for “real kids”) and on laptops of a class above average.
True Apple offers to hide them from prying eyes. The company cannot but be concerned that Passcode on the iPhone / iPod touch can provide only the minimum level of data protection - only 4 digits, but for real paranoids you can turn on the function of deleting all data after ten incorrect attempts.
Therefore, the company is trying to think of more serious methods of preventing unauthorized access to the device and personal information. And they want to do this without distracting the user from work.
How to organize it? Yes, very simple. In total, you just need to embed the sensors in the place of the device, according to which the user will precisely “crawl” with a finger. For example, it could be a phone slide slider (“Slide to unlock”), a touchless touchpad, or frequently used keys on a laptop — probably, this is the Power key :)
The patent assumes that sensors can be built into laptops and desktops like the iMac to recognize the face of the user sitting at the computer. In addition, the company thought about the recognition of voice and even genetic sequences by collecting DNA samples.
And as an alternative to biometric characteristics, less obvious lock-locks can be used: for example, tilting the device in certain directions or forcing iPhone users to click on icons in a certain sequence or use special gestures to unlock the device. It remains to add a puzzle for 1000 pieces and diffur :)
Magic wand - magic wand for Apple TV
This is my favorite :) With this controller, the user could control the cursor on the TV screen just as computer users do - in a two-dimensional plane. Unlike the current five-button Remote Consoles, the Magic Wand could control many new operations and applications used in the media system. For example, these are scaling operations, management of applications for viewing photos and videos, listening to audio.
In addition, one could try using such a controller to get rid of some physical buttons. For this purpose, special gestures are used in the patent: rotation and movement of a stick, rotation or any other actions.
These gestures can be used for CoverFlow technology, leafing through the media library, you can reduce / increase thumbnails of photos, you can scroll a movie or song, etc. Another application would be the ability to work with an on-screen keyboard. Instead of the usual up / down / left / right navigation, you can more or less conveniently enter text or use search.
As a result, the patent contains about 64 pages describing the idea. I can not say anything at the expense of convenience, but I am sure that children will be delighted with her!
That's all, in principle, what I wanted to tell. The material was collected for quite a long time and from different sources.
Let's see how readers react to the topic. If that - I will transfer to the thematic blog.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/58477/
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