Apple engineers are working intensively on the development of some of the most diverse technologies, and a new patent registered by Apple shows us the company's intentions to produce optical displays that could turn an iPhone into a scanner. These LCD displays would allow the transmission/reception of data by means of electromagnetic sensors that scan any element placed near the screen, make an image of it that is then displayed on the screen, or that can be transmitted to another device. HP implemented a similar technology in the 3 products presented last night and it seems that Apple plans to borrow the ideas from HP for the next iDevices.
Configurations using optical in-LCD sensing panels could provide transmission and/or reception of data. In one transmit/receive configuration, an optical in-LCD sensing panel could be used for communication. Data is transmitted by displaying a communication image encoding the data on the sensing panel, and data is received by capturing, with the EM sensors embedded in the panel, a communication image displayed in proximity to the panel. In another configuration, data is received by scanning an object using an optical in-LCD sensing panel. The motion of a handheld device including the panel could be determined by scanning a surface with the EM sensors at different times and comparing the corresponding scan images.
Those from HP have implemented NFC technology in their own products and using it the 3 new devices can interact with each other simply by being close. Apple intends to do exactly the same thing, but the company will produce LCD panels capable of scanning photo or text materials placed on top of them or allowing the user to use the screen as a touchpad to control a computer mouse. Apple has patented an extremely interesting technology, but I doubt that we will see it in any product too soon.
In contrast to conventional handheld scanners, the preceding example scanner mode may not require the user to maintain a constant velocity when moving the device across the surface to be scanned because, for example, the stitching algorithm can determine the motion of device 301 and compensate for the motion when stitching together the images.
