“The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 33 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple, “[including] an invention that relates to an advanced video conferencing system that includes a multi-view camera system that employs scalable video encoding.”
“Apple’s surprising video conferencing system is to compete with Microsoft’s Round Table Conferencing device and it’s a system that Apple might be able to get IBM to promote in the enterprise,” Purcher reports. “[Apple’s patent language explains], ‘There is a need to provide higher quality video content for the active speaker and little need to provide higher quality video for the other non-active participants. Accordingly, there is a need for a video conferencing technique that is capable of providing higher quality video content for the active speaker while providing lower quality video content for the other non-active participants in a given conference location in a bandwidth efficient and effective manner.'”
“Apple’s granted patent employs scalable video coding (SVC) in a multi-view camera system which is particularly suited for video conferencing,” Purcher reports. “Multiple cameras are oriented to capture video content of different image areas and generate corresponding original video streams that provide video content of the image areas.”
Read more, and see more of Apple’s patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Sarah” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
Apple is going to go head on with Microsoft and finish them off. It’s not just the iPad as we can see by this invention. Admittedly it’s an oddball product for Apple, though they could license it to others.
Now THIS is what you call innovation! Microsoft and Google, take note. (Just don’t straight up copy)
Unless the intent is to have 5 separate and simultaneous video conferences, I think they would have been better off with a 360 degree camera similar to that used for Google Streetview but replacing the still camera with a video camera. But then they may run in to patent problems with Google.. 😛
How do you think 360 degree (virtual reality) images are made? By seaming together multiple images. That could be done with this setup in real-time.
I am aware of the method of stitching images together to create 360 degree images. That is not the technology I am referring to.. The tech I am talking about takes the entire 360 degree image in a single shot saving the processing power needed to stitch images and instead uses it to correct the deformation from the curved mirror used to take that 360 degree image. One advantage of this is that you don’t get artifacts from moving objects like you would if you stitched images together.
THIS is what you call fanboy nonsense. Please take note of the devices and products that Microsoft and Google sell that Apple DOES NOT HAVE or that Apple created AFTER Microsoft and Google created theirs.
Which means that Microsoft INNOVATED when they made THEIR PRODUCT FIRST. Just like Google and Samsung innovated when they made THEIR WEARABLES first. Just because Apple’s products are (generally) better doesn’t mean that they are the only ones inventing and innovating.
The day is coming when MS will no longer exist. (That just gives me the shivers to think about). Therefore, we need to prepare and have non-MS products available to use.
MS stopped existing for me many years ago. Life is good. 🙂
It stopped existing for you years ago because
A) you do not run a company on tight margins where spending $500 for a good Windows PC that has Microsoft Office pre-loaded is a better deal than spending twice as much for a bare bones Apple machine
B) you are not an IT guy who needs enterprise software to perform serious tasks (like handling corporate data, hosting intranets, managing networks with heterogenous devices, corporate messaging on voice, data, IM and collaboration protocols) that Apple – primarily a hardware company – does not provide and never will.
“Therefore, we need to prepare and have non-MS products available to use.”
That is the point. Most of these problems that I am speaking of above that IT and business people need addressed can only be addressed via software (especially if issues like cost and flexibility are considered). Apple is not a software company. They are a hardware company who only produces software that is vital to their hardware (i.e. the OS and vital OS components). Software isn’t their wheelhouse. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t join up with IBM (of all people) to write enterprise applications that no one likes or would want to buy otherwise.
So until someone comes out with a product that solves the real enterprise, IT and business problems that Microsoft has been for 20 years, Microsoft isn’t going anywhere. Put it this way: do you know what the #2 productivity suite is? OpenOffice (I guess LibreOffice now) which is a copy of Microsoft Office. Yes, there are other enterprise servers out there, but they ALL have to implement their own versions of protocols and solutions CREATED BY MICROSOFT in order to actually be useful in a corporate network.
Microsoft is more than just Windows. It is the #1 enterprise/business software company in the world (and the #3 cloud company) for a reason.
Looks awkward! Wouldn’t you want the camera in line with the display? Otherwise you are looking up and down all the time. Plus I like watching the person when I talk.
It’s a Tardis!
I like how your mind works. 🙂
This is only a patent and will never be a product!
I want a conferencing system that will automatically mute speakers with dumb ideas.