Each week, there are dozens of Apple rumors, reports, and patent filings that hint at what’s coming out of Cupertino next. Some are legit, but most are totally bogus.
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You would think after what Apple went through with its Maps application which was released on iOS 6, they would try to copy Google a lot less considering how much everyone, even Apple themselves , hated the results. But it looks as though they may be following in Google’s footsteps as a new patent was filed by Apple showing something that looks a lot like Google Street View.
Apple’s “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation” was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently and it describes a user interface, which when combine with the iPhone or iPad’s sensors, will allow the user to navigate a panoramic image. Apple’s filing hints at possibly improving current technology which has users jumping to a panoramic “bubble” towards a given intersection to then pan within the bubble to view and move towards a location. Apple wants to improve on this experience by using a combination of data from their iOS device’s accelerometers, cameras, gyroscopes and additional sensors to “move” the user through a virtual street-level panoramic image.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Federal Agents Are No Match For Apple iMessage Encryption, Apple’s A7 Chip Could Be Built By TSMC Once Contract With Samsung Expires [Rumor], 
The patent office publishes oodles of Apple patent applications each week. It also grants a ton of them, allowing Apple to protect its IP against competitors. Whether it actually uses any of that IP in its products is another matter …
Future iPads could ditch Apple’s Lightning dock connector in favor of an even more seamless way to power the device: inductive charging through its magnetic Smart Cover.
Apple may not be an audio company, but by way of their EarPods that come packaged with every iPhone, they produce more headphones than almost anyone else. Today they were just granted a patent that could make their headphones different than everyone else’s. US Patent no. 20120281850 describes headphones that have cups that swivel 180 degrees (which is already done often) but it combines it with two different modes: a speaker mode and headphones mode. An amplifier in the headphones would turn up the volume when the unit would be in speaker mode, and when they were on somebody’s head, it would go into headphone mode to save his eardrums.
Considering that most tablets have terrible, weak speakers, this would be a pretty cool cost-saving measure, and a real reason to buy expensive headphones from Apple.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Plattan Tweed Edition headphones, These 3D printed headphones will help you stand out from the crowd,
While Apple has flirted with biometric-based patents before, we’ve yet to see them implemented in real-world technology. That hasn’t stopped it from filing yet another one though, as the latest application reveals a fingerprint sensor apparently embedded into the iPhone itself. The patent describes a hardware “window” that can become selectively “transparent or opaque.” When transparent, it would reveal a component comprised of an “image capture device, a strobe flash, a biometric sensor, a light sensor, a proximity sensor, or a solar panel, or a combination thereof” as a method of unlocking the phone. According to the filing, the biometric sensor in question might indeed be a fingerprint reader. The document goes on to describe an alternative method using face or eye recognition technology that can be used not just for security purposes, but for possible e-commerce solutions like completing an online transaction. Of course, take any of these patent applications with a generous pinch of salt — we haven’t seen an Apple stylus yet, for example — but perhaps this is the reason Apple bought fingerprint sensor maker AuthenTec back in July.
Filed under: Cellphones, Apple
Apple files patent application for fingerprint sensor that can be transparent or opaque originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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