Microsoft has a new patent on a technology that is pretty much like Google’s Project Glass. The big difference with the futuristic glasses of Google is that the technology from the Microsoft patent is more focused on specific targets.
Google has been toying with augmented reality glasses that could make life a lot easier. Apple also has rumored plans for an augmented reality glasses. Now, it seems that even Microsoft’s own smart glasses, if they come to market, could challenge Google’s Project Glass.
Microsoft’s glasses, according to the patent, let you do many things you do with your smartphones – things like recording video, snapping pictures or displaying a user interface. Microsoft wants information through the spectacles on projecting objects and events in the real world. For example, live events, such as sports, concerts or games, will have images and text above or besides showing statistics, trivia and more.
Here’s a description from the patent application:
Fans of live sporting and artistic events have enjoyed various types of information which is provided on different displays to supplement the live event. This supplemental information is provided both when the user is in attendance at the event and when the user views the event on broadcast media. One example of this is the augmentation of football games to display a first-down marker superimposed on a playing field in a broadcast television event, and the broadcast of replays both on broadcast television and large displays at the venue of the event.
According to Microsoft’s statements in the patent application, a wrist-worn computer could be used to operate the device, or the user might control it through voice-commands and flicking their eyes. To make it work, Microsoft suggests a wide range of sensors, including microphone, video camera, gyroscope, eye gaze-trackers, infra-red detector and magnetometer, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity need to be built into the eyewear to provide the functionality it describes.
It would be capable of generating display elements on various portions of a user’s display while remaining portions of the head-mounted display are transparent to allow the user to continue to view events or occurrences within the live event.
The patent application was initially filed by Kathryn Stone Perez, executive producer of the Xbox Incubation unit, and John Tardiff, an audio-video engineer, in May 2011. It is still unclear when or whether Microsoft would sell its augmented reality head-mounted device.