Apple is often filing patents for strange and fantastic things that never appear to find their way into actual products. But an application published today details some interesting tech that shall we actually see getting jammed right into a future iPhone (for better or worse). By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code , transmitters could disable certain features, similar to the camera, to avoid recording at movie theaters and music venues. If completely shutting off the cam seems a little heavy-handed, watermarks will also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content. Some potential uses are rather less Big Brother, like museums beaming details about exhibits to a user’s or launching an audio tour. Obviously third parties would need to get behind the IR push and there is no ensure that Apple will put this in a future iProduct. Still, we’re a little bit worried that the times of blurry YouTube concert videos can be coming to an end.
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