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An Augmented Reality Keyboard?

Posted on March 21, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple filed a patent detailing a new, adjustable keyboard that uses augmented reality as well.

Most computers come with lousy keyboards. That’s because most people don’t care about the keyboard so they’ll settle for mushy, cheap keyboards. For touch typists and gamers, keyboards can be a crucial link to a computer.

In the past if you wanted a solid keyboard, you had to get one with mechanical switches. This gave the keys more durability plus gave touch typists tactile feedback. The big problem with any keyboard is that they wear out over time and users have to adapt to the keyboard.

That’s why Apple’s latest patent shows an adjustable keyboard where you can define the stiffness and feel of the keys. This can be handy to adjust a keyboard to your preferences, or if the keyboard gets old and worn out, you can adjust its feel to compensate for this worn-out feel.

Even stranger is that Apple’s keyboard patent also includes an augmented reality feature. Physical keyboards are stuck offering dedicated buttons while virtual keyboards offer the ability to switch keys and modify them. So Apple’s latest patent involves using augmented reality to overlay different letters and characters on a physical keyboard. This gives you the advantage of a virtual keyboard while offering the tactile feedback of a mechanical keyboard.

Of course, you can’t view augmented reality by holding a mobile phone or tablet in front of your eyes all the time, which means this Apple patent hints at smart glasses. That way you can view different keys on a keyboard while wearing smart glasses to give you a different experience using a computer.

If Apple’s latest keyboard patent becomes a reality, that hints at a wildly different type of Macintosh computer in the future where you can physically adjust the feel of a keyboard and use smart glasses and augmented reality to change the keyboard like a virtual keyboard on an iPhone or iPad.

Keep your eyes on Apple’s latest patents. They often hint at the future to come.

Real-Time Health Monitoring is the Purpose of Wearable Computers

Posted on March 18, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: The “killer” app for the Apple Watch is real-time health monitoring.

When the Apple Watch first appeared, critics dismissed it as a gimmick. That’s because even Apple couldn’t define a specific use for the Apple Watch at first.

The whole purpose of technology is to solve a problem that was too difficult or impossible to solve previously. The PC made computers accessible to more people beyond the mainframe and minicomputer users. What made the PC useful was the spreadsheet, first embodied by VisiCalc and then by Lotus 1-2-3. People bought PCs specifically to use spreadsheets.

When the iPhone first came out, it represented a giant improvement over existing mobile phones, but also gave you a computer in your pocket. Combined with mobile location tracking, the iPhone defined how smartphones work, which eventually led to location tracking services like ride-sharing services.

The Apple Watch first appeared with no specific purpose in mind, but the latest Stanford study indicates that the Apple Watch does a decent job detecting heart abnormalities. To detect this usually requires expensive equipment at a doctor’s office, but the Apple Watch is bringing this capability to the masses. That makes real-time health monitoring the real killer app for wearable computers.

If you’re concerned about your health, then the Apple Watch is for you. For people who still refuse to buy and use a wearable computer like the Apple Watch, they’re essentially telling the world that they either can’t afford a wearable computer or they don’t think their life is worth a few hundred dollars.

The next step for wearable computers will be health enhancement. That can come with smart glasses that enhance a user’s vision while also tracking health conditions at the same time. Real-time health monitoring and enhancement is the ultimate goal of wearable computers.

Apple’s March 25 Event

Posted on March 12, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple announced a March 25 event that will likely focus on their news subscription service and TV shows.

Apple TV is just another way to stream content to a TV set. What could make Apple TV different from its numerous competitors is unique content.

Netflix and Hulu learned this long ago that they needed unique content to attract more subscribers because if they simply showed the same TV shows and movies as everyone else, there would be little reason for anyone to subscribe to their services. By offering unique content, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have turned themselves into a studio rivaling the big TV networks.

Now Apple is jumping into the game and they’ll likely introduce a new Apple TV model as well since the last Apple TV came out in September 2017. To go along with the new Apple TV, Apple will introduce their new streaming content.

The real key is whether Apple device owners will get this streaming content for free or whether they’ll need to pay a subscription fee. If Apple allows Apple product owners to watch their streaming content for free, they’ll guarantee a much larger number of viewers and help further cement the loyalty of Apple owners, making it harder for them to switch to rival products.

Right now, Apple TV is just a minor product that’s still trying to find its purpose much like HomePod. Adding unique content will help Apple TV, but whether it will be enough to differentiate Apple TV from rivals still remains to be seen.

Show business is a much harder business to predict than hardware or software sales, so Apple is venturing into unknown territory. Perhaps Apple should merge with Disney’s new streaming service to develop into a major powerhouse that few rivals could match.

Until then, expect Apple’s streaming content to be interesting but no game-changer. This March 25 event should be interesting for Apple TV users who want a new model, but for anyone else, this Apple event won’t hold much interest beyond streaming video content and news magazine subscriptions.

Apple’s Augmented Reality Smart Glasses Project

Posted on March 7, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple filed more patents for smart glass wearable computers.

Two years ago, Apple acquired an eye-tracking company called SensoMotoric Instruments. The company’s Eye Tracking Glasses were capable of recording a person’s natural gaze behavior in real-time and in real world situations with a sampling rate up to 120Hz. A YouTube video that has since been removed showed how an athlete could wear such smart glasses to evaluate their performance.

Now Apple has recently filed patents for cooling smart glasses by blowing air to cool the user’s head, making the smart glasses more comfortable to wear for long periods of time.

Perhaps one of the more interesting patent filings is eye tracking to monitor the distance between the lenses and the display assembly and the user’s eyes. This could detect the relative motion of the headset to the eyes to produce a more accurate visual experience when in motion. That’s likely where SensoMotoric Instrument’s eye-tracking technology is being used.

If you want to see the future of Apple, simply look at which companies they’ve acquired. When Apple acquired Metaio’s augmented reality technology, it was obvious they would eventually release augmented reality technology, which later appeared as ARKit.

While ARKit is limited to iOS devices, augmented reality is really suited for wearable smart glasses. Hence the future of ARKit is learning to develop apps for Apple’s smart glasses.

That requires learning the Swift programming language first, and ARKit second. When Apple releases smart glasses, they’ll likely expand ARKit’s capabilities to include eye-tracking. That means developers will soon be in demand to create smart glass apps as yet another spin-off from iOS like watchOS and tvOS.

If you want to profit from the future, you can’t go wrong learning to develop apps in ARKit.

To learn more about Apple’s smart glasses patents, click here.

The Future of Health Care

Posted on March 5, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: Technology is going to influence health care, but the first place to look is in the pet care industry.

Health care will eventually go digital. However, that will likely take time because change occurs slowly, especially when it comes to adopting technology for health care that’s crucial to people’s lives. While it’s inevitable that technology will change health care dramatically, it’s uncertain when and how this will happen.

To see how fast technology can influence health care, look no further than the pet care industry, which is a million dollar industry. Since people are willing to pay large amounts of money to keep their pets healthy, they’ll have far less reservations about adopting technology for pet health care.

While humans might be squeamish about wearable computers that track their health in real-time, pets won’t have a similar aversion. Sharing health care data digitally won’t be as crucial with pets as with humans, so veterinarians can perfect digital health care data services long before human health care providers embrace technology.

The end result could be pet care leading the way towards digital health care data in the near future. That means one day if you get sick and technology helps your health care, you could owe it all to your cat or dog first.

Watch the pet care industry. The future will arrive there first and slowly leak into the human health care industry after the pet care industry leads the way first.

The Dying Auto Industry

Posted on March 3, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Lyft will be offering stock soon and they’re already looking towards the end of car ownership.

At one time, the auto industry worked 24 hour in three shifts, making cars because people wanted mobility. While some people in cities relied on mass transit, most people in North America relied solely on owning cars to get them from one place to another.

The problem with cars is the cost. It costs money to buy a car, it costs more money to maintain a car, it costs even more money to buy insurance and fuel for a car. As wages stagnant while car prices creep up, the cost of owning a car is starting to get higher than simply relying on other transportation services like ride sharing.

That’s why Lyft’s IPO filing is crucial because it highlights the future. Lyft isn’t in the car business. They’re in the transportation business. That’s a crucial difference. It’s like the difference between Netflix and Blockbuster Video.

Netflix wasn’t in the DVD business like Blockbuster Video was. Netflix was in the movie rental business. Right from the start, Netflix targeted streaming video but they relied on mailing DVDs in the meantime until the future caught up with their vision.

The same is happening with Lyft. They know they’re in the transportation business whether it relies on cars, scooters, bikes, or other forms of transit. Car makers like General Motors and Ford have relied far too long on selling cars and trucks. Auto makers are even cutting back on cars and focusing on trucks and SUVs because that’s far more profitable.

Yet the future is clear. Transportation is needed, not car ownership any more than people want to buy their own private plane to fly somewhere.

Lyft, Google, Uber, and Apple are looking towards the future of self-driving, electric cars, and ride-sharing services. Focus on the future and you’ll wind up dominating it like Netflix. Focus on the past and you’ll wind up obsolete like Blockbuster Video.

Ride-sharing may not replace car ownership today, but it will tomorrow and tomorrow is coming faster than you might think. Just ask Blockbuster Video.