We’re accustomed here at AppleMagazine to hearing about the latest Apple patents, but Tuesday, March 29 proved a particularly prolific one for the Cupertino company on this front. That’s because it was on this day that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officially published no fewer than 60 patents newly granted to Apple.
We’d have a hard time trying to cover all of them, but perhaps especially eye-catching were two patents related to optoelectronic systems for future smartglasses and head-mounted devices (HMDs), as well as two patents covering Apple’s semi-autonomous vehicle project, Project Titan.
The aforementioned two of those patents were entitled “Image Projector with High Dynamic Range” (granted patent 11,290,694) and “Blur Prediction for Head Mounted Devices” (11,288,873). The former of those is generally related to optoelectronic systems, especially methods and devices for image projection.
The latter HMD-related patent, meanwhile, comes with a patent abstract stating: “Various implementations provide a computer-generated reality (CGR) experience on a head mounted device (HMD) that includes intentionally blurring virtual content to provide a more natural user experience.” The abstract cites the example of a user focusing on an object 10 feet away, during which time, a virtual object three feet away that is not focused on – but is nonetheless still visible – might be intentionally blurred so that it does not appear crisp.
As for the Project Titan patents, one of them is entitled “Control System” (11,285,773), and the other is called “Passenger Vehicle and Retractable Driver Input Devices” (11,285,988). The patent abstract for the latter describes a manual control system, in addition to an autonomous control system that “includes a sensor for sensing an external condition and a controller that autonomously controls the drive and steering systems according to the external condition when the passenger vehicle is operated in an autonomous drive mode.”
As always, the usual caveat must be voiced that there’s no guarantee of any one of these patent approvals actually being applied to products we can buy at retail in the future. Still, when taken together, they certainly paint an exciting picture of what could lie ahead in the years to come for Apple’s product lineup.
