Apple Expresses Interest in 'Kinect-Like' Control of Appliances and Vehicles

[powers74]

patents

Wow, this would make a great page two story.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

So, with this technology, I can talk to my toaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DDkwdPaYmk

 

[vincenz]

When will we be able to buy the iStove and iRefrigerator?

 

[AidenShaw]

Why does a headline "Apple expresses interest in control" make me nervous?

Will the Turtlenecked One decide for me that I should eat my toast medium dark, because a knob on a toaster is too confusing?

Scary....

 

[ngenerator]

Step 1: Acquire patents

It will be interesting to see what they do with it. My guess would be something in the workspace (or just in front of your laptop/iPad).

Step 2: ?

Step 3: Profit!

 

[ten-oak-druid]

This is to throw people off of Apple's plans.

Apple will be the leader in personal robots ten years from now.

 

[CFreymarc]

Finally a virus that can kill me by poisoning my food.

Dude, I was thinking of that myself. The "smart house" has been tried for going on fifty years now with almost all the total automation concepts never taking track.

Even going back to the White Westinghouse days, there were attempts are remote control of appliances by phoning into your house, a specialized exchange would respond to touch tones to start dinner and so on.

There are high end appliances these days with Ethernet connections and a LOT of custom homebrew work, but again, the security issue is always there. On thing I find ironic, you go into the home of some of the most senior techies in this valley, and you will find very simple, almost primitive, domestic setups.

The whole Kenitic thing could be a fad for motion recognition game use. However, it is a fascinating implementation of motion recognition that could make its way into desktop computing in a few years. Frankly, I would LOVE to stand in the middle of my office, projection screens on walls, walking around and writing code while keeping in shape.

 

[CFreymarc]

This is to throw people off of Apple's plans.

Apple will be the leader in personal robots ten years from now.

So you been spending time on Bubb Road too eh?

 

[Big Kahuna]

Douglas Adams comes to mind.

For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive — you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.

from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.​

 

[Dave77]

This will change everything again..

..our users have been asking for this for years.
Introducing the Ikitchen.this will change the way you cook forever.
or....All the things we've learned has come down to this...and blahblahblah...
-Steve Jobs 2014

 

[cowbellallen]

I'm somewhat upset that I wasn't credited for this tip. I emailed the story this morning, nearly 27 hours after it was posted by InformationWeek. I'm pretty sure MacRumors had overlooked this considering that they didn't even know about the patents from earlier this year and hadn't reported on it over a day after it became news.

 

[litchie]

At least we see one thing MS is leading!

 

[herro]

This is to make sure they can patent troll the future when actual kitchen appliance company's do start using motion sensors, etc.

 

[Mr. Gates]

The people behind Kinect came to Apple first first with the tech, they said Apple was too difficult to deal with and had to many sticks up their collective ass's .

I have a feeling Apple just wanted it that way so they could take the credit.

Another Apple branded "Innovation"

 

[Digitalclips]

A virtual keyboard on the top of a stove?

 

[Digitalclips]

When will we be able to buy the iStove and iRefrigerator?

They have them already at iHop

 

[sciwizam]

A virtual keyboard on the top of a stove?

Why not?! Then, Apple can sell you a glove to type correctly.

 

[Burger Thing]

MS is, in that respect, certainly ahead in the game. The kinetic control they introduced for their XBoxes was/is very innovative and seems to work and sell well. It will be interesting to see, what Apple has up their sleeves in future.

 

[ComputersaysNo]

Apple has established a patent which describes a technique in which several people a 3D image without the use of 3D glasses to see.

The technique is simple in the patent "Three-dimensional display system '. The illustration is quite complex, but its purpose is clear: Apple wants an effective, practical, efficient, easy and inexpensive technique for 'autostrereoscopische' 3D images create.

The technique used by Apple holds the position of various people in the eye and applies this information to the projection of the pixels to adapt to different people. According to the patent technology would be cheaper than current techniques.

Left and right eye
In contrast, Apple's technology first examines the position of the viewer and his movements to then use that information to pixels on a screen to project in such a way that they are reflected from the left and right eye of the viewer to create a 3D effect.

Any movement of the viewer is registered by sensors and the angle of projection is changed simultaneously. The technique is capable of that for multiple viewers simultaneously. Within the patent are some more details included, as an acceleration of the images relative to the movement of the viewer.

Mathematical formulas
Apple's patent application has been submitted in September 2006. Tuesday formally approved the patent. The patent application shall contain the formulas of how the images via the projector to the screen are reflected and received by the left and right eye of the viewer while it is moving

(google translate)

 

[erzhik]

just shows how upset Apple is about not getting on Kinect bandwagon first.

"You are cooking it wrong".

 

[fifthworld]

I would only care if Apple creates a software controlled iron, as I hate ironing my clothes. On the bright side, nobody will ever complain that an Apple computer can't make a coffee.

 

[garybUK]

iAd's on your worktop...... cooking chicken? pops up 'Why don't you come down to Nando's'

Either that or it will spontaneously explode

 

[Kensai]

In just about every case, credit for 'inventing' anything goes to the one who gets it out into the world as a real thing.
'Invention' is ALWAYS the result of standing on the shoulders of those who are standing on other shoulders.
This "so and so thought this up YEARS before that" stuff is silly.
Creativity lies in actually accomplishing things, not just dreaming them up.

Well said. My thoughts exactly.

 

[giosaccone]

It's very interesting.....

 

[NightFox]

But where would Apple sell this kind of stuff? Oh, I know... iKea.

 

[Winni]

Can't wait to read some of the comments here.

I mean, OMG, can you imagine this place if the story was the other way around. Can you imagine if Kinect was an Apple product and then a month after it came out Microsoft decided to make a similar product?

The fanboys will graciously ignore that fact.

But the interesting thing is that Apple failed to buy the company that created Kinect, but now they are going to steal that idea and, without a doubt, will some day present it as one of their "revolutionary" new products that "will change everything, again".

This entire Microsoft vs Apple thing is like comparing the catholic church with one of the ten million other christian churches. But in the end, it doesn't matter which confession you choose because they're all about mind control.