Apple Patent Watch: Pico Projectors and 'Schematic Maps'

[SockRolid]

Applefemto.com is also taken

Not sure who or what owns Applefemto.com, but it's also taken. (Pico is the prefix for one trillionth and femto is for one quadrillionth, as in "one femtosecond.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-

 

[SockRolid]

Been to Sanraku several times

The "Sanraku" on the map in the patent is a Japanese restaurant in the Metreon (formerly known as Sony Metreon) in SF. Decent restaurant. Took my iPhone 4 there the day it was first available at retail stores and it attained minor celebrity status. (Pre-ordering is the way to go. Trust me.)

 

[pewra]

Anyone that has ever seen a pico projector in person will debunk all that instantly. A 240 line projector is utterly useless for any given purpose, more so if you have a crazy high resolution on the unit itself.

 

[acslater017]

Loving that second idea, such as just showing the route on the map, not all the surrounding streets. Not original though, if you ask someone for directions and they draw you a map that's what they do, so I don't see how it can be patented, but I'd still like to see it in the Maps app. Wonder if a new maps app will be a suprise when iOS5 goes gold...

Much of what computers do is essentially what a human could do...just automated, 1,000x faster, customized, remotely delivered, manipulable...:roll eyes:

Having an APP that does this is certainly patentable...

 

[acslater017]

Projectors would be dumb. Seriously!? who would use them? The battery life already sucks and its not like it would be a good projector, if you are watching 1080p movies, it would be projected back into standard resolution because of the projector, plus this would add bulk to the iPhone, which Apple obviously doesn't want.

1) I'm sure 5 years ago, people would also say, "1 GHz Processor?! HD video camera?! 300 DPI display? Noise cancellation, 3G networking, and bluetooth? That's not technically feasible!"

2) I would use it. Have you ever tried to show a video to a group of friends? 5 people crowded around a 3.5" screen is the thing that's ridiculous, not projecting onto a wall...

3) Who knows how this technology will improve? I wouldn't be surprised if 2-3 years down the line, there will be stuff that blows our minds.

 

[appleftwz]

What about this...

I think having a pico projector would be exceptionally useful.

I work in IT for a company that uses projectors quite often for meetings and such. If they were on iOS devices it would certainly make life easier for them and for me in terms of availability and troubleshooting.

I would say that the battery life concern could be remedied by another possible upcoming Apple technology with wireless charging. If there was a "wireless power hub" or some sort of device you could use to keep power hot in certain meeting rooms while using the projector, that would pretty sweet.

Basically talking enterprise applications here, something Apple has started to push more towards. But there are also certainly practical personal uses for pico projectors as well. Curious to see where this might go.

 

[Jwood2313]

I'd love one, we were on holiday in China recently and there must have been 10 times that we were watching a programme (Prison Break as it happens) on the phone and would have rather projected it.

 

[justinfreid]

The schematic drawing patent demonstrates the way I always think about maps and directions after viewing them. If the iPhone's mapping app employed this method directly it'd be awesome.

 

[roow110]

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

Here is what the potential of adding pico projectors onto the iPhone is. We could hang the iPhone from our necks and use SixthSense-like technology to literally interact with the world around us on our iPhones. They could build the projector into the back of the phone, hang the phone around your neck, and then use the camera to track the movement of your hands to allow iPhone users to have the same user experience as SixthSense users. It would be revolutionary.

 

[Navdakilla]

Solid ideas,
hopefully something will be released like this someday

 

[deeddawg]

Welcome to 2009 Apple.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2356407,00.asp

Sounds like you didn't bother to actually look at the patent application.

You missed the "Filed: February 11, 2010" part and missed that it's not for a projector phone per se but for a way of using the phone's camera to interact with the projected image, or a multi-device setup doing similar.

Systems, methods, and devices are provided for creating a shared workspace where images may be shared between projected displays. In one embodiment, electronic devices each may include a projector that produces a projected display and a camera that detects gestures made with respect to the projected displays. The electronic devices may interpret gestures on the projected displays to identify image sharing commands for sharing images between the projected displays. The electronic devices may be connected through a communication link that allows the electronic devices to share image data for producing images on any of the projected displays included within the shared workspace.

 

[ChrisA]

Loving that second idea, such as just showing the route on the map, not all the surrounding streets. Not original though, if you ask someone for directions and they draw you a map that's what they do, so I don't see how it can be patented, but I'd still like to see it in the Maps app. Wonder if a new maps app will be a suprise when iOS5 goes gold...

I just wish I lived in the early 1900's I could have patented every normal daily activity but only added "but use an automobile". For example the folowing pattents woud be worth a mint:

1) Use car to go to and from work rather then walking or using public transit.

2) use car to carry heavy item from store to home rather then cart or wagon

I could have then sold licences for these "novel" uses of the new technology. OK laugh at me but Apple is only saying "Use computer to draw a map just like anyone would do by hand" or "use computer to make a chart just like any graphic artist would draw".

 

[klamse25]

This will be good but made in china.

Your avatar doesn't coincide with your intelligence.
Isn't most every Apple device made in China?

 

[DocNYz]

Not sure who or what owns Applefemto.com, but it's also taken. (Pico is the prefix for one trillionth and femto is for one quadrillionth, as in "one femtosecond.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-

That's because the root of the word means small, which is what they're referring to, not because it's one trillionth the size of a normal projector.

The "Sanraku" on the map in the patent is a Japanese restaurant in the Metreon (formerly known as Sony Metreon) in SF. Decent restaurant. Took my iPhone 4 there the day it was first available at retail stores and it attained minor celebrity status. (Pre-ordering is the way to go. Trust me.)

Unless you like the culture of waiting (drinking) in line all night and meeting other people with similar interests (i.e. other MR members) .

1) I'm sure 5 years ago, people would also say, "1 GHz Processor?! HD video camera?! 300 DPI display? Noise cancellation, 3G networking, and bluetooth? That's not technically feasible!"

2) I would use it. Have you ever tried to show a video to a group of friends? 5 people crowded around a 3.5" screen is the thing that's ridiculous, not projecting onto a wall...

3) Who knows how this technology will improve? I wouldn't be surprised if 2-3 years down the line, there will be stuff that blows our minds.

1) I totally agree.

2) Seriously, especially after like a concert or something.

Not to mention just laying in bed you can project videos on the ceiling

 

[BC2009]

Speaking of patents.....

Here is a fantastic piece by Nilay Patel on patent reform.

 

[spydr]

The idea of having a projector in your phone is pretty cool I guess, but it must really suck the battery life.

I guess if you are planning to project, remember your USB power supply.

While this idea is cool — I would love to have it as an optional snap on accessory than a built in hardware feature.

In terms of presentations, I think iOS 5 is going to make iOS devices a joy to make presentations from - as long as you hook up an apple TV to your projector, you can air play push your keynote presentation or screen contents to your audience with panache!

 

[quetzalcoatl]

Not sure about patent law in the US...is there a time limit for a patent holder to actualy create a prototype/final product for the patent to stay valid or is it more like: "Hey, I thought about getting a paptent for this first and even though I have no clue on how to make it...anyone dare to be smarter then me, ever, and actualy create the thing"?

btw, the map Idea sounds like the autozoom feature of many Nav-systems (like the newer TomToms) with added croping of some content...I wonder if that is even patentable?!

No there is not a time limit for US patents to be made into something. And that is part of the problem with the system. It use to be you patented something once you made it now you come up with an idea and you patent it. And the patents are supposedly unique things not just common sense good ideas. And under that the map should not be issued, but will. The single projector should not be issued, but will. Now the one of them working together that might be the only that should be patented.

 

[Trius]

Projectors would be dumb. Seriously!? who would use them? The battery life already sucks and its not like it would be a good projector, if you are watching 1080p movies, it would be projected back into standard resolution because of the projector, plus this would add bulk to the iPhone, which Apple obviously doesn't want.

*Flashback to 2004*
"A full touchscreen phone!?! That's retarded!! Have you ever used a touchscreen? They Suck!! Who is going to carry a stylus around to use their phone!!?!?!!??1!!11111"

 

[czeano]

The important part of this patent application is that someone from Apple Mothership likes to go to the Trader Joe's by Stanford instead of the closer ones in Cupertino or Sunnyvale.

 

[macnisse]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; sv-se) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Projectors would be dumb. Seriously!? who would use them? The battery life already sucks and its not like it would be a good projector, if you are watching 1080p movies, it would be projected back into standard resolution because of the projector, plus this would add bulk to the iPhone, which Apple obviously doesn't want.

How about brief business presentations on the go? I can definitely see how that might come in handy.

 

[kdarling]

Didn't ATT sell the LG Expo projector smartphone last year?

Projector phones were supposed to be all the rage in 2010. Unfortunately, with the projector attached, that one was pretty thick.

 

[a random John]

Simplified Maps

MapBlast, a company out of Stanford about 10 years ago, had a similar simplified map technology which they called LineDrive.

The idea was to produce a map for directions similar to what you'd draw on the back of a napkin for someone. So it would have exaggerated detail in areas that were important (destination, turns) and very little detail elsewhere. Also, it wasn't to scale in order to facilitate fitting the complex areas in and making the long boring stretches smaller. I thought it was great and used it a lot in the era when I printed maps for travel to new cities.

Microsoft bought MapBlast and kept the technology for a while but I haven't been able to find LineDrive or its equivalent for a long time. I would love to have something similar on the iPhone.

 

[a random John]

More info on LineDrive

Here's a good look at the LineDrive technology of 10 years ago:
http://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/remembering-linedrive/

And it looks like MS is deprecating it just as Apple is copying it:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc514631.aspx

 

[ScouseGeek]

I like the idea, I can almost see this used as the direction finder in Dead Space and Dead Space 2 put your hand out direction is projected onto the floor for you to follow.

 

[accessoriesguy]

"While we do hesitate to read too much into Apple's patent applications,"...

Skip.

lol!