Apple updates patent to include biometric sensors in AR devices for virtual meetings

Apple has moved forward with patent work on smartglasses or head mounted displays (HMD) devices with biometric eye sensors for virtual meetings, and updated a patent granted in February, writes Patently Apple.

The company’s patents associated with MR glasses enhanced with eye tracking systems resulted from the purchase of SensoMotoric, a computer vision company with a focus on eye tracking technology. Apple believes virtual meetings will be possible in the future, whether in a business or personal context, and has updated the patent for bionic virtual meeting room applications to be successful.

A bionic virtual room detects the biometric characteristics of a user and could be operated on network-connected devices such as computers, mobile virtual reality or augmented reality glasses, tablets or smartphones. The communication system could also be applied to virtual reality (VR) in gaming, entertainment and human interaction.

The patent update involves cancelling the first 14 original claims which focused on a mixed-reality environment, and focusing on smartglasses, on checking biometrics such as bodily gestures, facial features and expressions, eye features, and hair, eye and skin color. The devices used in “bionic” virtual meetings will be embedded with biometric sensors and processors to establish the user’s level of abstraction and confirm identity, as users will appear as Memojis.

The continuation patent application was published on May 7, 2020, and was filed on January 8, 2020. The first granted patent was issued in February 2020.

Article Topics

Apple  |  augmented reality  |  biometric sensors  |  biometrics  |  eye tracking  |  patents