Project Glass? Not quite, but Apple gets patent for wearable device
Apple may be taking a page out of Google’s book.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday awarded the Cupertino tech giant a patent for a wearable display device that certainly sounds, at the very least, similar to Google’s Project Glass.
As you likely have seen by now, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been touting the company’s computer glasses, going as far as putting together a huge spectacle last week, complete with bikers and skydivers, to announce that participants in the company’s Google I/O conference could purchase a prototype of the project that will arrive early next year for $1,500.
But now, the new Apple patent indicates Apple may at the very least be entertaining the idea of waging war with Google in yet another market.
The actual patent describes a “peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays†that isn’t intended to be as mobile as Google’s Project Glass but rather a more static experience, according to The Next Web.
The device immerses the users with two displays and techniques for filling their peripheral vision with the image being shown, according to various reports.
The device, which could be for a helmet, pair of glasses or even a visor, would have applications useful to surgeons, military personnel, firefighters, police officers, scientists and engineers, according to Wired.
If you wan’t to check out the patent yourself, you can click this link and head on over to read it, but keep in mind that just because there is a patent, it does not mean Apple will for sure build this Project Glass rival.
Even if Apple jumped in, that wouldn’t be Google’s only competition. Oakley, the glasses company, is also reportedly testing out its own glasses device, according to an April report by Bloomberg. Could this mean the next major platform after mobile will be headgear?
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