Welcome to Patent Bolt, a dedicated Intellectual Property news site that specializes in dissecting patent applications from leading industry players such as Microsoft, Google, Samsung and others. If you love to explore future inventions, you'll love our site.
In Patent Bolt's miniseries covering future features coming to Microsoft's Surface tablet, we've presented a wide range of technologies. We began by covering Microsoft's next generation digital pen and quickly followed up with another report on how multi-touch and pen combination gestures would work together. In our third report we illustrated how twisting, tilting and shaking Microsoft's future tablets will initiate certain tablet functions. In today's fourth installment, we take a look at yet another Microsoft patent that clearly indicates their intent to bring fingerprint detection to Surface at some point in time. According to Microsoft, biometrics via Fingerprinting will act as a user's unique key for starting their devices and eventually work itself right into corporate boardrooms in a very unique way.
We began our multipart series on Monday covering new capabilities coming to Microsoft's new "Surface" tablet with a report titled "Microsoft Invents New Cooperative Touch + Pen Input Mechanism." In that report we covered how Surface would take on new combination multitouch and pen gestures. In today's report we cover Microsoft's future tablet-gesturing. Users will soon be able to simply twist their devices a certain way to initiate a command or be able to send or share a document with a colleague in a very simple way without even having to tap devices. In this latest Microsoft patent they advance their new Interpretation and Behavior Selection Module (IBSM) with capabilities covering device input events for orientation, motion, imaging and more. While multitouch may have kick started the next phase of the digital revolution in terms of user gesturing, it only scratched the Surface of what's to come.
In June 2011, Intel introduced the "Ultrabook" at Computex. The theme of their keynote was the "Transformation of the PC." Two of the many breakthroughs announced during that keynote related to a giant leap coming to the Ultrabook in 2013. This particular iteration of the Ultrabook is to be powered by their next generation processor coded named "Haswell." Specifically, Haswell is designed to support multiple operating systems and multitouch displays. These capabilities will provide OEM's with the ability to sell one device into several dedicated markets. In order to better accommodate and capitalize on this advancement, Samsung is looking to introduce a new hybrid tablet-notebook device sometime in the not-too-distant future. The timing of this patent application coming to light so close to Haswell's introduction is seen as a promising development.
In our first Microsoft patent report posted this morning we covered the basics of the new digital pen associated with their Surface tablet that's due to debut later this year. In our second report on their new digital pen, we specifically cover their all new cooperative touch + pen input mechanism called the Interpretation and Behavior Selection Module (IBSM). The new technology is designed to allow a user to execute a number of combination gestures involving both touch and pen in order to perform a particular task. Microsoft makes it clear that other types of inputs will be added to the IBSM at a later point in time. In fact, news of another type of input surfaced last week involving "eye control." So while multitouch may have kick started the next phase of the digital revolution in terms of user gesturing, it only scratched the Surface of what's to come.
Last week Microsoft executed a focused media blitz previewing their Windows 8 Phone and tablet called Surface that created a lot of buzz. The new Surface tablet will come to market with the release of Windows 8 later this year and will be a worthy iPad challenger. Microsoft's pro model will include Intel's Ivy Bridge processor, a high end keyboard built right into its magnetically connected cover and offer a next generation stylus that will deliver a true real-time experience. Instead of trying to copy the iPad, like so many competitors have done to date, Window's Surface brings some real innovation to the table from its original Metro user interface right through to its industrial design. Yet under the surface, there's been a literal bombardment of interesting if not exciting patent applications about where the future of Surface may be headed – and we'll be covering some of those applications throughout the week. In today's report, we take a basic look at one of the patent applications behind Microsoft's new electronic pen.
The US Patent & Trademark Office has published Google's latest trademark application for their "Google Driverless Car" Icon under application 85650611. Can you guess which one it is? No? Well, it's the one in the bottom right corner that's slightly tilted. Google filed their trademark under International Class 12 covering "electronic system that allows autonomous driving of vehicles." Beyond their new icon, our report lists a number of newly registered trademarks that Google gained in June 2012.
In order to get around Apple's methodology of handling folders on Android, Samsung has devised a number of interesting new twists that will allow users to quickly scroll through folder items. Another idea will allow a user to build mini stacks of apps or subfolders that are easier to manage quickly. A little competition has forced Samsung's engineers to come up with some rather inspiring new user interface folder ideas for Android that will benefit most consumers and professionals alike.
While Google and Microsoft appear to have definite plans of bringing their respective video glasses to market over the next year or so, we've yet to officially hear from Sony. Microsoft's game plan is to directly tie their future video glasses to the next generation Xbox experience putting pressure on Sony to respond in kind. At the moment, the public may aware of Sony's new "personal 3D Viewer" that works with the Playstation, but they may not be aware that Sony has several versions of video glasses on the drawing board as well. In March of this year, before any of the hoopla over video glasses hit the market, one of Sony's patents regarding video glasses surfaced in relation to video gaming. In fact, Sony has been working on video glasses since 2008. So this isn't new to them in the least. Now a second patent has surfaced and this time around Sony is expanding their vision for their future video glasses to not only support "portable gaming" but also to function as an advanced camera-communications device that could have a rippling effect in several unexpected markets over the next decade.
The day is fast approaching when the creative and energetic Air Guitarists amongst us will be given the gift of sound. It appears that the wizards in Microsoft's Kinect division have devised a way to map hand and body gestures into musically notes by using the motion sensing Kinect as a MIDI controller. With Guitar Hero biting the dust, it looks like Microsoft is getting ready to take music gaming to the next level.
