Apple has been working towards a 3D version of OS X for some time. In late 2008 we first learned about a "multi-dimensional" OS and later in December 2009 Apple revealed a 3D version of OS X using head-tracking technology. In today's patent, we get to see another angle that Apple is working on that somewhat relates to their 2008 patent and yet is unique. As the graphic above illustrates, Apple will employ advanced ambient light sensors on their hardware that could interact with surrounding light. In the graphic above, an in home lamp is reflecting on the laptop screen and casting shadows on elements on the display. This is yet more proof that Apple is on track for an advanced 3D OS sometime in the future as hardware adopts more cores. Intel had forecasted at CES this year that Sandy Bridge based systems would kick start 3D internet and advanced avatar creating software in 2011.
A newly published Apple continuation patent today relates to a next generation Apple virtual store. The patent titled "Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere" illustrates that the virtual store will involve some 3D dynamic whereby "Apple Reps" will greet online visitors to assist them with their purchases and/or answer questions about specific products. Apple was granted a related patent titled "Method, system, and medium for representing visitor activity in an online store" in February of this year. Apple's continual push on this front, at minimum, shows us that they're keeping this interesting project alive.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 9 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today in addition to two design wins. The notables within this group of granted patents includes one relating to the MacBook Air's "Now-You-See-It, Now-You-Don't" Port Hatch, another for a water detection system ensuring that warranty claims aren't fraudulent and the biggie of the day, without a doubt, is Apple's granted patent for an exciting future 3D Virtual Apple Store. This is going to be wild when Apple delivers on this concept.
In October 2009, Patently Apple pointed to Intel being On the Cusp of a Whole New Industry and presented you with an insider's view of what Intel had been promoting and marketing behind the scenes in respect to the next wave of 3D TV and other interesting subject matters. In Otellini's CES keynote, he shared his belief that "we're on the cusp of a new era in computing."More importantly, Otellini and his 3D lab team treated us to some very powerful conceptual imagery; Imagery that most definitely could translate into explosive new Apple products in the coming years. Beyond that, Otellini emphasized SmartTV, the power needed to power all forms of 3D content and introduced us all to the Home Energy Management Dashboard that will definitely become a part of our in-home strategy down the road.
Very early this morning, Gus Sentementes of the Baltimore Sun contacted me about a patent that he had discovered about a 3D interface from Apple. In his report, he assigns the technology to Apple's rumored tablet. Not that the technology couldn't pertain to a tablet, because it most certainly could, but indirectly. The patent in question never uses the term tablet as Apple has in many instances including one reported on today in a granted patent report. The new patent in question, credits Fabrice Robinet, Thomas Goossens and Alexandre Moha of France. The catch here of course is that Alexandre Moha is Product & Engineering Manager at Apple. So there's no doubt that it's an Apple patent and there's equally no doubt that the patent places emphasis on a 3D interface coming to Apple's media players -the iPhone specifically. Although the patent figures don't go into as much detail as another recent 3D patent from Apple, there's no doubt that this patent advances and confirms that this is a direction that Apple is taking their media players in the future. Equally important, in my view, is that this patent points to a new unique camera built into a future iPhone that will allow the user to rotate the position of the optical sensor within the iPhone's housing so that a single optical sensor could be used for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition. Turn the camera out for pictures and turn the camera in for video conferencing. That may end up really being the magic to this patent.
On the last patent day of 2009, the US Patent & Trademark Office published an important continuation patent from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters for Apple TV's remote. Firstly, the remote will implement a new magnetic compass within the remote's casing that will actually float in liquid so as to maintain its position relative to the gravity vector. This will provide the remote with incredible precision movement and fluidity. Secondly, with this new found precision, Apple hints of introducing a new illustration application to showcase this new remote's capabilities which would likely debut as iWork's fourth application. That in itself is great news. In theory, Apple's Keynote application would greatly benefit from such a new tool - in that it could provide the presenter with the ability to mark-up presentation graphics on screen live with this new 3D wand/remote.
Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals the next chapter for Apple's OS X interface beyond Snow Leopard. Apple's patent introduces us to a higher end 3D interface that will be able to provide parallax transforms of objects, applications and even games with incredibly high detailed reflection realism using a new wide-angle iSight camera. The camera tracks the users head and changes the screen perspective accordingly. In our October report titled Intel, Apple working on 3D Internet we discussed the coming 3D internet in context with Intel's coming 32 nm Microarchitecture code named Sandybridge. Intel has made it clear that it will take 8 core systems to bring about the 3D internet experience for consumers. Likewise, Apple's patent makes several references to the enormous power it will take to bring about this next generation interface experience that will bring in new realism to 3D that will also enhance our Augmented Reality experiences. Apple's patent also introduces us to all new Sensing and Sound detecting mechanisms to enhance our 3D experience. This is one powerful patent that shows us what we could expect from OS X in the coming years.
Over the last year, a number of very interesting Apple patents have come to light concerning various technologies that at the time of their publication were simply seen as islands of information unto themselves. Yet in hindsight, I can now see that yet another major Apple trend has emerged in 2009, that of Augmented Reality. I didn't recognize the extent of Apple's involvement in this area of technology until I had read a recent report filed by Nikkei Electronics Asia on this very subject. Once I saw the examples that were being presented in that report, the related Apple patents were easily recognizable. This report takes a peek at the magic that the Cupertino Mages are now conjuring up for us in future products and wonder if we're not actually looking at the beginning phases of some kind of new sixth sense.
Intel's forthcoming Sandybridge microprocessor architecture will introduce us all to on-chip AVX instructions, a technology which will advance things like 3D graphics and broadcasting capabilities on the consumer side while advancing commercial applications that need compute-intensive performance to support timely decisions such as financial services where nano seconds can make a difference. It will advance capabilities for resource and manufacturing industries that construct and model software solutions across multiple dimensions of space and time. Yet the most interesting twist to this technology is that it may in fact, open the door to what Intel calls 3D Internet.
Well before IDF 2009 even began, Intel was on the road selling a new message to selective audiences in front of and behind the cameras. We began hearing about Intel's vision for television at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show during Paul Otellini's keynote, where he discussed topics such as WiMAX, HDTV and their upcoming SoC called Canmore. Fast forwarding to February 2008 and we see that Intel's mission of promoting the next wave of television and entertainment services went into higher gear behind the scenes where they began promoting the notion that they were on the very cusp of a whole new industry. This report takes a quick peek back at that key 2008 event and then flashes forward to cover two current Intel keynotes that take a peek at the future of television. In the end, we go full circle in order to try and give some meaning to what being on the cusp of a whole new industry actually means.
Fourteen months ago I wrote a very popular report called "Will Apple Open a Store in Second Life?" which was based on Apple's patent application titled "Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere." In it I presented evidence of Apple's first look into creating an online retail-social environment for avatars. Today, we see Apple wildly advancing their technology on this front in respect to direct human-to-avatar expressions. When your head will turn right to left, so will your avatars in realtime. The technology takes advantage of Apple's built-in iSight camera through a process described in the patent in which the camera sets your face up as a profile that replaces the mouse. As an avatar, your three-dimensional head is tracked by the video camera using motion vectors, which gives you the ability to move in six degrees of freedom, including up, down, left, right, backward, forward and free rotation etc. The avatar representation can be broadly applied in computer technology, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on Internet forums or chatting websites.
On June 18, 2009, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application of Apple's which generally relates toathree-dimensional movie browser or editor. While the three-dimensional movie browser or editor described in the patent focuses primarily on a computer system using Final Cut Pro, it's apparent that the technology in its more simplest of forms works itself down into other devices like the iPod touch, iPhone, Apple TV and/or other future devices be they televisions or a game console. The 3D browser could be used on any browser or application window such as QuickTime, iTunes, iMovie and sub systems such as DVD menus or DVD scene searching tools. Apple's Cover Flow is a familiar and simple example of a 3D movie browser.
