Apple wins patents for a 'passive cooling system' for 'Vision Pro' & utilizing their Digital Crown for controlling the UI of future Smartglasses
Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent that relates to a head-mountable device (Apple Vision) that can provide passive cooling that utilizes surfaces of an optical assembly to allow heat to be managed in a manner that does not detrimentally impact the visual information displayed to the user.
Lenses can be coated with a transparent and thermally conductive material, such as silver nanowire. Such a thermal layer can provide superior thermal conductivity, transmittance, flexibility, flat transmission, low cost, and angular color stability. The thermal layer can passively manage heat by increasing the surface area across which heat can be efficiently dissipated.
For more details, review Apple's granted patent 11751366.
Multi-input For Rotating And Translating Crown Modules
In a second granted patent, we learn that Apple is considering the use of their digital crown being used on future smartglasses as noted in patent FIG. 8A below.
More specifically, Apple notes that FIG. 8A above shows a side view of an operation of an HMD #850 that includes smartglasses that can include a frame #860 and a user interface #854. An input device #820 and camera #858 can be positioned on the glasses. The camera can be used to track a gaze of the user.
Apple's patent FIG. 8B above shows a specific use case of a user interface #803 of smartglasses #850 of FIG. 8A. As shown in FIG. 8B, the user interface #803 can include multiple graphical icons or applications #805. The user interface can be controlled by the input device/digital crown #820 and the gaze tracking camera #858, individually or in combination.
For example, input by a user's finger 824 at the input device #820 can cause the applications #805 to move or change. The input at the input device/digital crown #820 can be a swipe, a rotation, a tilt, or combinations thereof.
A second input can then be provided by determining the gaze of the user. For example, the gaze tracking camera #858 can determine that the user is looking at, and or visually tracking, a specific icon #813 and can perform a function based on that determination.
For instance, the application corresponding to icon #813 can be selected and/or opened if the gaze tracking camera #858 determines that a user is focused on a specific icon #813 for a pre-determined period of time while the input device #820 is engaged. In this manner, the user interface #803 can be interacted with using a combination of the input device and gaze tracking camera.
For deeper details, review granted patent 11747919.
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