Apple Inc (NASDAQ : AAPL) applied a new patent for ‘Transparent Texting’ to turn the screen transparent with the help of rear camera. The latest patent, which is not an innovation and was seen a few years ago, will allow the users to send and receive texts while walking down the path. By feeding the video, the concept will create an illusion that the screen is transparent
The abstract of the patent states, “An electronic communication device’s camera can continuously capture and present video images as a background within a text messaging session currently being displayed by the device. The camera can be a rear-facing camera on the device, so that the video images represent the views that the device’s user would see if the device’s display were transparent. The camera can continuously capture and present the video images as the background in the text messaging session, so that the device’s user continuously can be aware of the environment beyond the device’s display while still focusing on the text messages being communicated. The background within the text messaging session can continuously be a live and current video image of the view seen by the camera at any given moment. Consequently, the device’s user is less likely to collide with or stumble over an object while participating in a text messaging session.”
The company is supposedly going to have an app for this in the future releases of iOS. The app will be designed in a way that it feeds the video from the rear camera whenever the messaging app is turned on. It would just behave as a background and won’t hide the texts.
While this one does not follow the Apple’s ‘Think Different’ approach, the company recently applied a patent for an iPad accessory— Stylus. The stylus has a flexible and soft “nib” and can be used as a pen, pencil or even the brush. With the sensors inside it, it can also pick real world colors.
While many of the patents never see a daylight, it is interesting to see what innovations the company is doing.
There’s already an app or apps out there that do this. So I’m not sure how Apple can patent something that someone else has already done. But then again I’m not a patent expert.