14 DAY TRIAL // The US Patent and Trademark Office has been hard at work for the past couple of days. New Apple's patents have been published and they give us a little peek into what's cooking in Cupertino, California.
A day after the iTime wristwatch patent was released, the US Patent and Trademark Office details new patents granted to Apple. Most of the new stuff is related either to the rumored wristwatch or to technologies that can help the cameras in portable devices work better.
PatentlyApple describes some of these as key patents for future flexible displays. One of the patents, for example is using special hinges based on a three or four bar linkage, hinges with slotted members, hinges formed from support structures and hinges based on flexible housing structures.
Apple has invented a device with a flexible display that may be mounted on the housing portions overlapping the hinges. When the housing portions in a device are rotate relative to each other, the flexible display may bend.
Back in January 2014, the European Patent Office published a patent that Apple filed in Korea. Just to hide it in plain sight, Apple decided to file this under the names of the engineers that worked for the project. The company's name was only listed as the official assignee.
Apple did not limit his flexible display ideas to a wristwatch. The patent illustrations can express any of the following devices: a laptop, tablet, pendant device, headphones, cellular phone, a media player, desktop computer, televisions, set-top boxes or other electronics.
But that is not all. Apple was granted multiple other patents. Here's a few of the most interesting ones:
- Managing consistency of multiple-source fabrication data in an electronic design environment
- Scrollable preview of content
- Web-clip widgets on a portable multifunction device (That would look nice on an iTime wristwatch)
- Automated determination of applicability and value of discounts for a purchase order
- Forced radio cell or radio access technology reselection responsive to network access barring.
- Exporting metadata associated with digital video
- Continuous autofocus mechanisms for image capturing devices
- Red-eye removal using multiple recognition channels
- Rolling shutter reduction based on motion sensors
- Adaptive use of wireless display
- Disappearing button or slider
- Device, method and graphical user interface for manipulating tables using multi-contact gestures
- System and methods for electronic device keyboard illumination
- Connector devices having a flushed and zero gap finish and methods of manufacture