In June of this year, Intel provided their developers with a peak at their Ultrabook roadmap that was clearly aimed at taking on Apple's MacBook lineup, specifically the MacBook Air. Of course Apple is going to remain a moving target and this morning we see how they're moving on one such front. According to DigiTimes, Apple is likely to launch their MacBook Pro with a display resolution of 2880 by 1800 in the second quarter of 2012, setting a new round of competition for panel specifications in the notebook industry.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-three newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our second and final granted patent report of the day we focus in on Apple's second Magic Mouse patent victory and their sixth win towards their future Telephonic MacBook. In our June 2011 report covering Intel's IDF titled "Intel, Apple & the Transformation of the PC," we covered Intel's focus on their all new Ultrabook PC category. One of the key attributes coming to Ultrabooks appeared in their slides relating to phase-two and three of their Ultrabook architecture; these next generation Ultrabooks would always be on and always be connected. Obviously Intel is planning to integrate 4G into their Ultrabooks in the not-too-distant future and this is why the Telephonic MacBook will be a reality. It's not a matter of if but rather when.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-three newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our first of two reports covering today's granted patents, we cover one of Apple's latest patent wins for a camera control that only came to light as a patent application late last week and also take a look at three of Apple's new design wins and question whether changes are needed to better protect design patents in the future.
Late last week the US Patent & Trademark Office published another round of patent applications from Apple that relate to cameras. In today's report we touch on all five of these new camera related inventions that cover such matters as adaptive lens shading correction, new flash exposure controls and more. Apple has been pushing iOS camera capabilities each and every time a new version of the iPhone debuts. Earlier this quarter we posted a report covering two of their latest patented technologies, and today's round of patents raises Apple's camera patent count to twenty for 2011 alone. There's also good news on the iOS camera front for 2012. Apple's iOS cameras will be supporting new advancements such as dynamic contrast enhancements, image sensor compensation and much, much more. These advancements were revealed in a new presentation slide from Imagination Technologies this month. Imagination Technologies is the company behind the graphics processor found in iOS devices today.
The US Patent & Trademark Office has published Apple's latest trademark application for "iTunes Match" under application 85487574. Apple has filed their trademark under four distinct International Classes covering such areas as telecom services, entertainment, computer software, and most importantly, "customized music playlists based on user preferences determined from an analysis of the user's existing media library." Apple has also filed a service mark application for their AirDrop logo. The illustrated logo accompanying their filing is massive.
One of the forty patent applications that were published by the US Patent & Trademark Office for Apple this past week focused on advancing FaceTime conferencing. Years ago, the vast majority of video conferences were conducted in controlled studios or conference rooms designed with specialty lighting for optimal viewing. Today that's all changed; the vast majority of video conferences are done on the fly, on the go, in a meeting, in a park, in your car, in a lobby or in your home office where lighting conditions could be insufficient or constantly changing. The standard Auto Exposure (or AE) features found in most mobile phones today weren't designed to adapt to those kinds of quickly changing lighting environments for mobile video conferences. Apple's invention illustrates the intent is to go far beyond the auto exposure standards of today to deliver a solid solution to this problem.
Yesterday, US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a rather inventive idea of fighting grime on your iOS Devices. We were the first to reveal Apple's initial patent on this subject in August that focused on using a vaporizing method involving a physical vapor deposition chamber. In Apple's latest method, they reveal an alternate method of fighting grime that uses mechanical wave mechanisms that could use audio or physical vibrations. The interesting fact is that Apple has expedited this patent application which was only filed seven months ago. Apple is apparently out to fight grime on all iOS devices in the future, and before you know it, they'll be called the Grime Busters! That's right: Who ya gonna call?Grime Busters!
On December 8, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published several patent applications from Apple that reveal their work on cooling down the exterior of their entire mobile device lineup from iPad to MacBook. Metal exteriors obviously get hotter than other substrates and Apple's latest round of inventions touch on creating "monitoring thermal zones" within each device that could drop the internal temperature as required to keep the exterior cool to the touch. This is also important because heat affects the accuracy of the gyroscope found in all iOS devices. On that point, Apple is shown to have reengineered their gyro so that it'll run cooler in the future. While we all know that Apple offers some of the coolest mobile devices in world today, Apple is now forecasting that they'll have even cooler devices in the future, literally.
Just a few weeks ago we posted a special report that was all about Apple's secretive yet Magical Design Studio. In that report we also covered Ive's new toy that would assist Apple's design team in prototyping complicated wireless antenna-sets. If that wasn't enough, today we're treated to a little more of that behind-the-scenes magic. This time, we're able to review two of Apple's latest inventions that relate to testing sophisticated sensor-sets that go into every iOS device before shipping. The sensor-set includes accelerometers, multi-axis motion sensors, gyroscopes and many more. The new testing equipment carefully analyzes these sensors to ensure that they leave the factory properly calibrated. It's rare that we get a glimpse into how Apple manufactures their products, but the detailing of these new inventions does just that.
On December 8, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published well over 40 patent applications from Apple in a single day. In our first report of the day, we focus on several patents that cover the advancement of audio quality in future iPhones. Specifically, the main patent covers an advanced noise suppression system that will be welcomed. Many times I've spoken to people calling me on their iPhone and sometimes I've been able to hear the person next to them speaking as clearly as I could hear them. That's not exactly the way it's supposed to work. Apple's newly proposed audio advancement system is likely to put that issue to rest while advancing iPhone audio quality overall. The last tidbit of information derived from this group of patents was rather a bit of a surprise. Apple revealed the use of a speakerphone feature on a future iPad - and that could be a new killer app in the making. While we could hope for this to roll out next year, we must always remember that technology revealed in a patent application could take more time to work through the system than we'd like. On the other hand, let's hope that Apple doesn't tease us with this for too long!
A lawyer/inventor by the name of Erik Cherdak of Maryland is suing Apple, Nike, PhatRat and a key individual by the name of Curtis Vock. Mr. Vock is shown to be both a partner at the law firm of Lathrop & Gage and an inventor on the patent that was issued to PhatRat. Erik Cherdak, who has sued companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Payless, Nordstrom, Kmart and others in the past, has an interesting complaint. Basically Cherdak is claiming that Apple and Nike have either licensed certain patents or were assigned certain patents from PhatRat to legally protect the Nike + iPod product lines, but that PhatRat deceived the USPTO during a patent examination in gaining the patent grants. There's a lot of money on the line here and this case may even slow down other sporting products that Apple may be working on at present.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of fifteen newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our third and final patent report of the day, we cover a number of new powerful iPhone related patents that Apple's legal team will no doubt be able to add to their growing arsenal. The first patent covers the iPhone being able to order and pay for items such as fast food over a wireless network. The second and third patents cover the very complex subject of signal processing algorithms forwireless MIMO communication systems. And lastly, we look at Apple's reinvention of the circuit board that discusses multi-part substrate assemblies that allow Apple to design ever thinner iOS devices.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 15 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our second patent report of the day, we focus entirely on a single patent which covers Apple's Next Generation Automated Location Services. These services will one day go far beyond simple GPS services and into the realm of consumer and public sector situational based location services that are far more reaching.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of fifteen newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our first patent report of the day, we focus mainly on Apple's unique magnet array system that could one day allow tiny yet powerful accessories to be added to both iOS devices and perhaps even the MacBook Air. Our report's secondary focus covers Apple's communication protocol that is used in their Nike + iPod system.
This past week the US Patent & Trademark Office published a pair of patent applications from Apple that revealed another round of iPhone camera technologies. One of Apple's latest inventions relating to a next generation auto exposure algorithm may have actually slipped into Apple's latest iPhone 4S. The second invention revealed this week relates to "Automatic Tone Mapping Curve Generation." Apple has made a number of great advancements in their latest iPhone 4S camera that now makes it even easier for consumers to capture those great at-the-moment photos that make everlasting memories. Other patented technologies that made it into this year's iPhone 4S include video stabilization and face detection. If you happen to be a camera aficionado, then you might just want to delve into an overview of Apple's latest goodies.
