Apple Filed Transparent Texting Patent

Apple filed the patent on Thursday last week with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It basically enables smartphone’s rear camera to record what’s going on in front of the phone by displaying the video live on the camera’s screen. The text interface will appear on the display at the same time as an overlay with some degree of transparency so that the user can see what is happening in front of them while texting.

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It says that “An electronic communication device’s camera can continuously capture and present video images as a background within a text messaging session currently being displayed by the device. The camera can be a rear-facing camera on the device, so that the video images represent the views that the device’s user would see if the device’s display were transparent. The camera can continuously capture and present the video images as the background in the text messaging session, so that the device’s user continuously can be aware of the environment beyond the device’s display while still focusing on the text messages being communicated.”

The patent is named as ‘transparent texting.’ Apple seems to take utmost care for the ability of this feature to reduce risk of injury for users.

The patent also states that “(It) is common, even if not entirely safe, for a mobile device user to engage in a text messaging session while he is concurrently walking. Due to the visual nature of a text messaging session, such a user often will find it difficult to divide his attention between his device’s display and his environmental surroundings. A user who is walking while participating in a text messaging session may inadvertently collide with or stumble over objects in his path because his attention was focused on his device’s display instead of the path that he was traversing. Even if a user remains stationary while participating in a text messaging session, that user may expose himself to some amount of danger or potential embarrassment if he is so engaged in his device’s display that he becomes oblivious to changes in his surrounding environment.”

Lets see how Apple brings the concept into the market and at the same time how safe it is for users.