MacBlogz - One Stop Apple News » Patents

Apple Patent Shows Interest in Film Production, Script-Integrated Storyboards

Aviv — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:28:01 +0000

A recently published patent application titled “SCRIPT-INTEGRATED STORYBOARDS” by Apple shows the company’s interest in stepping even deeper into the world of motion picture production.

The patent application explains how it would serve as a tool for film and video editors and producers. Storyboards are a way that people involved in a film’s production can communicate and visually represent their thoughts to one another. While Apple have a presence in professional grade film editing with software like Final Cut Pro, this patent applications shows interest in the other side of the process, actually shooting the film.

One illustration shows the proposed interface for script and actors.

Specifically, this piece of software would allow for those working on a film to visually place and arrange elements like the cameras and actors, while efficiently integrating in with the actual script. As InformationWeek explains, “…rather than being a purely visual aid for those behind the lens, the storyboards Apple has in mind could serve both crew and actors.” As the patent explains, the storyboards could be distributed to all members of the crew and production alike. In essence, the software would serve as another effective way of visually communicating thoughts across a team of people.

Another shot of the interface shows script integration with a specific actor info card.

Apple describes the background on the patent as follows: Producing motion pictures can be an exciting project. Motion picture productions can range from major studio epics to documentaries produced by small independent film makers. The major studio epic can encompass a large cast and crew with large inventories of equipment, while the smaller film may include a smaller cast and crew with limited inventories. Even smaller productions may involve multiple locations and include multiple scenes with different shots within a scene.

Another description is as follows, “In one general sense, a storyboard presentation for a motion picture production is generated by launching a scene design tool that includes a camera placement tool and an actor placement tool. Using the actor placement tool, a first actor icon is added on a scene layout for a motion picture production, the first actor icon representing a first actor that will appear in a scene in the motion picture production. Using the camera placement tool, the first camera icon is added on a scene layout for the motion picture production, the first camera icon representing a first camera that will film the scene. The user is enabled to control a location and orientation of the first actor icon using the actor placement tool. The user also is enabled to control a location and orientation of the first camera icon relative to the first actor icon using the camera placement tool.”

Whether the patent application turns into an actual product has yet to be seen. But, it does make sense for Apple to have intentions on creating a symbiotic relationship between two pieces of software used for the same overall goal. With this proposed application and a nice marriage to Final Cut Pro, nearly everyone involved on a particular film, whether it be major motion pictures or a small independent filmmaker, would be able to seamlessly work together in an Apple ecosystem using specified hardware that’s in tune with the software being used. While it may seem like a locked down environment to some, the ease of use and stability this may provide would be nearly unmatched in the movie business. You can download the patent application’s full 36 page PDF here.

Apple Awarded iPhone and Multi-Touch Device Patent

Aviv — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:08:22 +0000

Fresh on the heels of what would seem to be an innovation war between Apple and Palm, the United States Patent Office has awarded Apple the patent on the multi-touch and touch-screen input methods in question.

The massive patent is titled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics, and can be found here. Of note, some of the applications within this patent date back to September 2006, before the original iPhone was even announced.

The patent reads: A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.

Interestingly, as of late Apple and Palm have made statements that seem directed towards the other company. Apple COO Tim Cook said that Apple would vigorously defend its multi-touch patents, and Palm snapped back explaining that they would defend their proprietary technology as well.

“We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does,” Cook has explained. “I don’t want to talk about any specific company. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off.” This of course has led many to believe that we may see a mammoth lawsuit filed over the use of multi-touch input methods. Which in turn may negatively affect competitive innovation, which is never good for the industry.

As MacRumors and WorldofApple both note, Apple CEO is Steve Jobs is listed as the primary inventor along with Scott Forstall and a slew of Apple engineers.

Apple Patent Aims to Integrate Calendar App and iPhone Mapping [U]

Dave — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:17:24 +0000

A recent Apple patent details a tight integration between navigation and the Calendar and Address Book applications. Unwired View reports that the Apple dubbed “Integrated calendar and map applications in a mobile device,” may be tied into future iPhone firmware updates.

The workflow of the purposed integration seems rather straightforward. A user enters in their scheduling information, i.e. meetings or appointments etc… into their Calendar and if a person’s name correlates to one already located in your address book, the software will automatically complete your entry. Additionally, if there is an address or location associated with the entry, it will automatically interpret this data onto your map, while still allowing you to manually input information if necessary.

“Techniques, computer programs and apparatus relating to an integrated calendar and map feature are described. In one implementation, one or more calendar entries are identified in a calendar. A calendar entry includes an associated time and an associated location. A display of a map is provided including a graphical representation indicating a location associated with at least one calendar entry. The location associated with the calendar entry is derived from the calendar entry and included in a request to a map application for the map.”

When a significant amount of information is entered into the device, say you have several meetings spread throughout the day, the software can find and map the best routes using routing and traffic data that can even estimate the amount of time you will need to get to a specific location. In this respect, your iPhone can monitor your whereabouts and ping you when it feels you should leave for your next meeting in order to avoid being tardy. If for whatever reason you are running late, your iPhone has you covered as it will prompt you to send a pre-selected message with a single touch.

When and if this integration becomes fully implemented, I am sure it will be of great benefit if you are on the go and need to be punctual. To read the entire application, you can download the .pdf(2.3MB) here.

The official patent (#60/946,921) is credited directly to Scott Forstall, Imran A. Chaudhri, Gregory N. Christie and Robert E. Borchers.

Apple Working on Cold Weather Multi-touch Capable Gloves

Dave — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:59:25 +0000

MacRumors reports of a recent Apple patent application that has been released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, detailing the use of gloves that will allow a user to operate a broad array of electronic devices.

As any iPhone/iPod touch user residing in a northern climate will know, when the temperature drops significantly, it makes it difficult to operate your device without losing feeling in your fingertips. Credited to Ashwin Sunder and Steven Hotelling at Apple, the invention is not only designed to be used with Multi-touch devices, but covers a wide variety electronic contrivances as well.

Macrumors reports that the gloves consist of a thin inner shell and a thicker outer outer shell and provide the user several methods of operation. One includes the use of electronically conductive materials that allows the transmitted signal from the user’s finger to be recognized by the input mechanism on the device. Apple does, however, recognize that the tactile response is hindered when wearing the gloves, yet removable finger caps can alleviate some of these issues.

While this patent, as with many others may never come to fruition, it does demonstrate a concerted effort on Apple’s behalf, to address the issue of geo-specific use of their products. Dots Gloves, The North Face, and Freehands have also attempted to make Mutli-touch friendly gloves.

New Patent Outlines Swipe Gestures for Touch Screen Keyboard

Aviv — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 01:44:57 +0000

MacRumors points us to a new patent application titled Swipe Gestures for Touch Screen Keyboards that was unveiled by the United States Patent Office today.

The patent application gives credit to Wanye Westerman, who along with his partner John Elias were brought onto Apple’s touch technology team after founding Fingerworks. While it may not be widely known, Fingerworks has been largely responsible for developing a lot of Apple’s current touch technology. Apple has financially supported Elias and Westerman’s furthering of the touch tech, and we all know how far they’ve taken it so far.

One possible scenario in which the new swipe gestures would be used, is “on top” of the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. In essence, these new gestures would give users access to certain input elements like “delete” and “enter” via more natural progressions.

For example, erasing and basic punctuation insertion, directional swipes (also referred to herein as “swipe gestures”) over the alphabetic keys can be used as an alternative to striking certain keys. Because the Space and Backspace keys are quite frequently used, they are logical candidates for the rightward and leftward swipes, respectively. Leftward and rightward swipes intuitively match the cursor travel caused by these symbols. Following this cursor movement analogy, the Enter/Return may be invoked by a downward swipe, and a Shift/Caps may be invoked by an upward swipe. Alternatively, as the Enter and Shift functions may be less frequently invoked, these may be substituted for other functions as well. One alternative mapping for the upward swipe, for example, could be to activate an alternative numeric and punctuation keypad or a particular punctuation symbol like an apostrophe or period.

Surely many will take this patent with a bit more of a “conceptual” vibe than usual. As MacRumors notes, this particular patent application is pretty ambitious. Apple’s touch technology is believed to be carried over into future touch interface products, including a Mac tablet or netbook. However, the technology still needs to mature before it can be adopted by the masses for expected and efficient productivity. After all, there’s still no copy-and-paste.

Apple Sued Over Alleged Apple TV Patent Infringements

Aviv — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:59:41 +0000

A lawsuit has been filed against Apple, accusing the company of infringing on certain patents pertaining to the Apple TV, Airport Express, and Macintosh personal computers.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, by EZ4Media in Bannockburn, Illinois. The patents in question were obtained by EZ4Media (UEI) in March. They say that Apple hired three former UEI employees — “Nick Kalayjian, Bruce Edwards, and Wendy Goh” — nearly a year before unveiling the Apple TV.

“Each of these employees had access to UEI’s confidential and proprietary information and left UEI for Apple within 30 days of each other in the second quarter of 2005,” the complaint says. “Apple TV was commercially introduced in September 2006.” (via InformationWeek)

One of the former employees Nick Kalayjian, is now an engineering manager at Tesla Motors. He says when he held the position of senior hardware systems integrator at Apple, he wasn’t involved in the development of Apple TV.

As we know, the Mark Papermaster saga has gone on for a few months now, even though poaching talent from one company to another seems like fair game in the tech industry. Noncompete agreements tend to mean much less in the state of California, which also helps.

Read – FDC Filings & Dockets

Apple Patent Reveals 3D Desktop User Interface

Dave — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:45:25 +0000

Among the host of patent applications released today shines a gem above the rest, a 54 page filing divulging research conducted in 2007 that displays a “Multidimensional” or true 3D desktop user interface.

Macrumors reports that one in the series of these patents, dubbed Multidimensional Desktop, contains diagrams that reveal how the desktop may look and function. The figure below, shows the multidimensional environment, which as you can see depicts what appears to be 3 dimensional depth. Along the sides of the desktop lie “function” icons that could prompt commands on each surface. These icons are also believed to be able to receive 3D manipulation, allowing them to “fall” if displaced.

The image below displays how a window can be dragged across the multiple 3 dimensional surfaces, which can trigger icons or windows to display different information. “For example, on the bottom surface, icons and other system object representations can be displayed according to a large scale; on the side surface, icons and system object representations can be displayed according to small scale; on the back surface, icons and other system object representations can be displayed in a list format.”

An additional example shows a 3D Finder that lacks a traditional surface, instead utilizing a stack item to access menu items, typically found at the top of the desktop. When a menu item is selected it could place menu items on a variety of surfaces.

Macrumors maintains that it is still unclear when or if Apple will ever apply these concepts to future versions of Mac OS X, as 10.6, due to arrive in Q1 of 2009 has focused primarily on “under the hood” performance.

Apple Exploring Infrared Hover Technology For User Input

Aviv — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:08:20 +0000

A patent filing from Apple published today, outlines the company’s exploration with infra-red technology, specifically in allowing users to invoke functions without having to actually touch a surface or display.

DISPLAY INTEGRATED PHOTODIODE MATRIX: The use of one or more proximity sensors alone or in combination with one or more touch sensors in a multi-touch panel to detect the presence of a finger, body part or other object and control or trigger one or more functions in accordance with an “image” of touch provided by the sensor outputs is disclosed. In some embodiments, one or more infrared (IR) proximity sensors can be driven with a specific stimulation frequency and emit IR light from one or more areas, which can in some embodiments correspond to “pixel” locations. The reflected IR signal, if any, can be demodulated using synchronous demodulation.

Essentially, this patent aims at core user input functionality. Apple is researching alternative user input methods, as they have explained in the past. Hovering over a screen to call up commands without actually needing to physically touch the device seems like a natural progression in user input. Apple itself calls this method of future input desirable. A user would be able to control everything from dimming the screen, powering the device on and off, and individually controlling elements of the device, all without ever physically touching the display.

“Additionally, merely by placing a finger, hand or other object near a touch panel, virtual buttons on the display screen can be highlighted without actually triggering the ‘pushing’ of those buttons to alert the user that a virtual button is about to be pushed should the user actually make contact with the touch panel,” the filing says. “Furthermore, the combination of touch panel and proximity (hovering) sensor input devices can enable the computing system to perform additional functions not previously available with only a touch panel.”

As AppleInsider notes, the filing is from July 2008, however wasn’t published until today. The patent gives credit to Apple employees Steve Hotelling, Brian Lynch, and Jeffrey Bernstein.

Apple Files Patent For Liquid Cooled Portable Computer

Aviv — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:40:51 +0000

Submitted by Apple Inc, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application titled Liquid Cooled Portable Computer, on Thanksgiving Day 2008 (November 27th).

The patent mostly relates to methods for cooling notebooks, however may be extended into portable media devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch. The patents describe some heat-transfer methods, specifically using liquid coolants to transport heat in future notebooks. As Macnn points out, quad-core processors should be hitting the market early next year, and cooling systems will be growing increasingly crucial.

Two cooling systems are presented in the patent. The first shown here, utilizes an “active heat-transfer” mechanism where the liquid used to coll the processors is in two stages, such as liquid and gaseous. …”the liquid coolant may include bubbles that include a gas. Therefore, in some embodiments nucleation of the bubbles and/or latent heat may be used to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of the liquid coolant. Furthermore, in some embodiments the liquid coolant includes metal particles to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of the liquid coolant,” Macnn explains.

In other setups, the computer may react to the liquid coolant by coupling it through to the passive heat sink (instead of an active-heat transfer shown in Fig.1A). In the second illustration, heat that is transferred by the liquid coolant to the aluminum plate is less noticeable to the user.

Patent Infringement Lawsuit Targets iPhone and Mobile Web Surfing

Aviv — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:08:45 +0000

A new lawsuit charges Apple with violating certain patents regarding the iPhone’s Safari Mobile web browser, and the way a user can pinch, zoom, rotate and view web pages. As the Supreme Court tightens its patent policy, this one might be a little trickier to defend.

EMG Technology, LLC claims that Apple is in direct violation of a patent titled “Apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming and scrolling internet content.”

The patent itself explains, “A method and apparatus of simplified navigation. A web page is provided having a link to a sister site. The sister site facilitates simplified navigation. Pages from the sister site are served responsive to actuation of the sister site link. In one embodiment, the sister site includes matrix pages to permit matrix navigation.” EMG seems to think that the entire user experience Apple has built into Safari (zooming, pinching, launching a new web-page) violates the patent.

But that’s only part of it. According to statements made by EMG attorney and “IP expert,” Stanley Gibson, the company is suing Apple over various other companies making mobile versions of their websites for easy display and navigation on the iPhone. “For example, to access NBC on a computer the URL is NBC.com. For the mobile site on the iPhone, the URL would be m.NBC.com,” Gibson said in a statement. “The ‘196 patent covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen.” Which is totally why EMG is suing Apple and not, say, NBC. Or Motorola, which also displays mobile-formatted web pages. Or Palm. Or Microsoft. Or anyone, really,” Jacqui Cheng explains for Ars Technica.

Additionally, EMI is seeking an injunction against Apple which would prevent it from continuing to use the technology that allegedly violates the patent being referenced. The Supreme Court has recently tightened its policy on software based patents that seem “obvious”, so this one might be a little more difficult to defend.