“Apple has been awarded a patent for a virtual reality headset that can use an iPhone or iPod as a display,” John P. Mello Jr. reports for TechNewsWorld. “Patent number 8,957,835 was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to Apple for a “head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display.” The abstract describes a device similar to the Gear VR, which weds a Samsung Note smartphone to a headpiece designed by Oculus.”
“In its description of the patent, Apple explains that the head-mounted display system would allow users to couple and decouple a portable electronic device with a head-mounted device so the two devices would temporarily act as a single unit,” Mello Jr. reports. “The portable electronic device — such as an iPhone — and the head-mounting device would be able to communicate with each other, the patent explained, and each device may be allowed to extend its features and services to the other to enhance, increase and eliminate redundant functions between the devices.”
“Quin C. Hoellwarth is listed as the inventor on the patent, which was filed in September 2008,” Mello Jr. reports. “One advantage a hybrid headset has over more conventional VR offerings is mobility, observed Eric Smith, an analyst in the digital consumer practice at Strategy Analytics. ‘It gets rid of the bulky game console or PC that one-piece headsets have to hook up to,’ he told TechNewsWorld.”
Read more in the full article here.
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