Apple New Patent Applications: Pico Projectors And 'Schematic Maps'

A couple of new patent application from Apple published today is gaining some attention. The first application describes in detail how the company could integrate tiny projectors into iPads, iPhones and MacBooks. The application even suggests that cameras will be capable of detecting “shadows and/or silhouettes” gestures shown on the projected display.

Also it explains what the company calls a “shared projected workspace”. Seemingly this is the ability for sharing content among users over two or more projected displays. In other words content can be transferred between displays within shared workspace. For example, if one user projects an image from one iOS device, and another user projects an image from second device, then it would be possible to share images between both displays.

Also the system would automatically interpret and recognize shadows and gestures, which would make presentations more dynamic and interactive. Working in separate-display mode, a user could make a gesture to "push" content from one display onto another. Unified-display mode would automatically line up projected images to create a unified workspace allowing to cover much larger space than only one display can cover.

A second patent application, reported by AppleInsider, describes some advances made by Apple’s map team after acquisition of Placebase in 2009. The new application with the title "Schematic Maps" was filed in February 2010 and credited to co-founder of Placebase Moran Ben-David and Jaron Waldman. It describes a new maps application that could show the most relevant part of information or routing searched by the user.

The application describes how a map app would automatically assign "usefulness" indexes to different map details and would either distort existing maps to highlight the most useful details or show only the most relevant features.

One of the examples is a map route that shows only the exact route searched by the user, with a subset of the most useful information such as landmarks and cross streets. Other example is schematic map highlighting nearby location of friends and contacts or emphasizing the small alleyway that could lead you to nearby location.