Hasta La Gadget!

When you set up your Android phone with a secure unlock mode, it often means giving up app shortcuts. You won’t have to make that sacrifice if Google implements a newly granted US patent, however. The technique lets device owners complement a basic pattern unlock with multiple customizable patterns that launch specific apps, such as the camera or dialer. It’s a simple concept. The question is whether or not Google will ever use it — when Android 4.3 still relies on a conventional pattern unlock, it’s clear that the company isn’t in a big rush.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google

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Source: USPTO

Patents are the new kind of “ammunition” for companies these days, and in a particular patent that Microsoft filed in 2012 (which has obviously been made public), it depicted an idea to churn out augmented reality glasses for gamers, especially for those involved in multiplayer gaming. The patent request was for “the system and related methods for inviting a potential player to participate in a multiplayer game via a user-mounted display device.”

For instance, a future player invitation program will be on the receiving end of user voice data, where it will perform an analysis and determine whether said user voice data is an invitation to participate in a multiplayer game or not. Other than that, the patent also involves receiving eye-tracking information, depth information, facial recognition information, potential player head-mounted display device information, and/or potential player voice data, which will be used to associate itself with any future invitations. Once a potential match is made, that player can join in on a multiplayer game, and the entire idea of this patent is to reduce the amount time required to set up matches via a menu system. Time is of the essence, after all.

Microsoft Patent Points To Gaming Augmented Reality Glasses original content from Ubergizmo.

Remember those “Fortaleza” AR glasses we saw in a leaked Microsoft document back when the Xbox One was still the Xbox 720? It looks like those might actually be a thing, if a patent application from Redmond is any indication. It touts the idea of “multiplayer gaming with a head-mounted display,” claiming the device could receive voice commands, track your eyes, calculate depth and recognize the faces of fellow players. All that would be in the rather narrow service of letting you invite others and accept invitations to a game through strictly visual means, though. That makes it similar to another recent Microsoft patent we saw for augmenting live events with AR, since the emphasis is on a specific usage rather than the eyewear itself. We might even see an application some day for actual gaming on such a device, but meanwhile, check after the break for more images.

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables, Microsoft

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Via: NeoGAF

Source: USPTO

If you ever drive someone’s car or let someone else drive your vehicle, you likely spend a couple minutes before driving having to re-adjust certain aspects of the car to meet your needs and preference: the side-view mirrors, the steering wheel, the seat height and distance from wheel. Apple has a different vision for your […]

Apple has been granted a new patent related to camera tech by the USPTO today (via AppleInsider), which uses three different sensors and three different lenses to improve color-capture accuracy and image resolution for photos shot with an iPhone or other mobile device. The system is similar to the two-sensor Apple patent around mobile cameras the company applied for recently, but it solves a different kind of imaging problem.

This sensor arrangement would improve upon most mobile camera designs by using two chorminance sensors, each of which is placed to one side of a luminance sensor. The luminance or light sensor would determine light levels of the image, while the chrominance sensors would be responsible for accurately capturing color data. Two chrominance sensors arranged in that manner would be able to compensate for blind spots in each other’s field of view, ensuring accurate color rendering for all scenes.

If color info is missing from any part of the scene, as can happen with traditional combined sensor arrangements, then overall photo resolution suffers, too, because of a lack of data, so this would improve not only color rendering but overall image quality. And the information drawn from the two chrominance sensors would also be useful in automatically correcting for distortion caused by the camera lens.

Last week, as mentioned, Apple patented dual-sensor imaging for iPhones, that would automatically combine two separate images to correct for flaws in either. Combined with this sensor design, it begins to be apparent that Apple is doing lots of work on the imaging side of its mobile offerings. The iPhone has long been held up as an example of the best camera in smartphones, but competitors are starting to focus innovation on their own camera designs, the Lumia 1020 being probably the most recent memorable example.

Apple probably doesn’t have much to fear from Windows Phone devices, feature rich as they may be, but a significant camera improvement is a good way to attract customers with something new. Don’t expect changes like these to iPhone cameras coming in the next update this fall, but definitely consider this an area to watch over the next few years.