Apple is making a further play for the augmented reality (AR) market with a patent application that combines touchscreen control with AR devices and smart glasses.
The patent - uncovered by Patently Apple, a website dedicated to reporting on Apple
patents – is focused at allowing people to select points of interest (POIs) to obtain further
information on them.
In the patent application, touchscreen functionality is applied outside of use with
a mobile device and extended to AR glasses. A user would be able to point at
a POI and the gesture be recognised by the AR system.
Therefore, a user wearing
the glasses could point at an object, such as an artefact in a museum, and the
glasses would capture an image of the finger and bring up information about the object
highlighted.
According to Patently Apple the patent application was submitted by Metaio, the creator of ‘Thermal
Touch’ augmented reality for wearables that was bought by Apple in 2015.
Source: Patently Apple