For years Apple's engineers have been dreaming up the futuristic MacBook with a virtual area where the traditional keyboard rests today. A virtual area that could be an illuminated keyboard or drawing area, gamepad area or even a mini music keyboard. Today Lenovo borrowed a page right out of Apple's patent playbook with the new Yoga Book that delivers on that dream as noted in the video below. Will this type of notebook be a tiny market niche or the beginning of a new hot trend? With Apple's latest patent on this concept being published in 2016, it would appear that Apple is taking this design very seriously.

Below are just a few of the patent figures from the patents linked to above giving you a quick peek at various virtual device concepts that Apple has been working since 2010.

Just for the record, I'm not saying that Lenovo stole an Apple idea, I'm simply pointing out that this has been a concept that Apple's engineers have been working on since 2010 and that it's now on the cusp of being a trend with the arrival of the Yoga Book. On the flip side, when and if Apple launches such a unit, let it be known to the general media and Windows world that Apple didn't copy the Lenovo Yoga Book but rather fulfilled patents that have been on the books for years.

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