Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 75 newly granted utility patents for Apple Inc. In this particular report we cover two patents relating to future smartglasses. And as always, we wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple this week.

Smartglasses: Activating Audio Privacy Mode

An aspect of today's Apple's granted patent covers a method performed by a headset that is worn by a user for activating a privacy mode. 

The headset is an audio device (e.g., smart glasses) that includes extra-aural speakers that are configured to output user-desired audio content (e.g., music).

These speakers, as opposed to earphone speakers project sound into the environment to be heard by the user of the headset. This projection of sound produces a sound field, within which other people (e.g., observers) may be able to hear the sound. 

This may be an undesirable effect when the audio content is of a private nature (e.g., a phone call with a doctor). To prevent observers from overhearing the sound produced by the speakers, the user of the headset may activate the privacy mode, which causes the headset to reduce sound output of the speakers, and thereby reduce the size of the sound field to only include the user. Thus, the observers who were originally within the sound field can no longer hear (or perceive) the sound.

To activate the privacy mode, the headset determines that a speaker is at least partially covered. When the sound level exceeds a threshold level above which is indicative of the speaker and microphone being at least partially covered (e.g., by the user's cupped hand), the headset may activate the privacy mode.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below illustrates a progression of stages of a user initiating a privacy mode on a pair of smart glasses upon a determination that a speaker of the headset is at least partially covered.

For full details including 19 new patent claims, review Apple’s granted patent 12175159.

Deformation Sensors in Smartglasses that Corrects Visual Misalignment due to a Drop Event, Thermal Fluctuations+

Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent that relates to future smartglasses. More specifically, the patent covers the use of new Deformation Sensors to ensure that the AR visuals presented to a user are kept properly aligned due to a drop event, drastic changes in weather and more.

Deformation of the support structures due to forces from mounting a device on a user's head, due to damage from a drop event, due to thermal fluctuations, or due to other events, may cause the camera pointing vectors and/or the display system pointing vectors to become misaligned. Sensor circuitry such as strain gauge circuitry may measure pointing vector misalignment. Control circuitry in the device may use sensor measurements to compensate for changes in the orientations of the pointing vectors with respect to each other.

For example, the control circuitry may process image data captured using the left and right cameras to compensate for changes in the left and right camera pointing vector directions with respect to each other, thereby producing satisfactory stereo captured images. To compensate for changes in the left and right display system pointing vector orientations with respect to each other, the control circuitry may adjust the images produced by the left and/or right display systems (e.g., to adjust keystoning, to crop images, and/or to adjust other image attributes). In this way, the left and right images will fuse properly in the user's vision and will not suffer from distortion due to misalignment of the pointing vectors.

In an illustrative configuration, the head-mounted support structures are configured so that images for the left and right eye boxes will be satisfactorily aligned with respect to each other even if side portions of the head-mounted support structures are deformed.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below presents a pair of smartglasses. Display systems #14 may be opaque or transparent. During operation, the display systems may be used in displaying images for a user. The images may include, for example, computer-generated images containing text, computer-generated objects, and other virtual image content. If desired, device 10 (smartglasses) may have forward-facing cameras such as cameras #30L and #30R.

Apple's patent FIG. 2 above is a rear view of the glasses in an illustrative configuration in which a set of three strain gauges #40 are used to  measure optical pointing vector misalignment. The strain gauges may include meandering sensor lines that change resistance as a function of the amount of bending in the strain gauge.

Apple's patent FIG. 4 above is a flow chart of illustrative operations associated with operating the glasses. During the operations of block #46, the control circuitry #20 may use sensors #16 to characterize the amount of deformation present in the glasses housing.

As shown in FIG. 5 above, is a top view of a portion of an illustrative head-mounted device that may be deformed. 

For more details, it's 18 new patent claims, review Apple's granted patent 12174391.

A Few of this Week's Remaining Granted Patents