Apple on Tuesday was granted a patent that allows users to skip unwanted audio and video broadcast segments such as commercials with on-device content like songs, podcasts or other media, possibly hinting at technology headed to the battle for the living room.AppleInsider
I don't know anyone in their right mind who doesn't like the sound of this. That's fantastic, and I hope we see it in an Apple TV sometime in the near future. iOS 6 may be too soon, but we can hope.
And many of you know, Apple acquires smaller companies with specific purposes from time to time. Recently, Apple "urgently" acquired AuthenTec to gain immediate access to their proprietary technology.
Apple's urgency to gain access to AuthenTec technology, involving $27.5 million in up front payments during negotiations and culminating in a $356 million offer to acquire the entire company, appears targeted at an advanced "Smart Sensor" component that does more than just read fingerprints, but that's not all the acquisition target offered.
...AuthenTec notes that its "semiconductor-based sensors are based on both capacitive and radio frequency (RF) technology that detects an image of the fingerprint ridge and valley pattern beneath the surface of the skin, thus capturing sharp and clear fingerprint patterns from the live layer. This approach, which is in marked contrast with optical, thermal and other solutions that simply read the surface of the skin, gives AuthenTec sensors significant advantages in image quality and in the protective coatings that the sensor can image through."AppleInsider
New home button on your iPhone or iPad? Lets hope. That's about as good as security measures get for your personal device. It would certainly be another deterrent to theft, even though Apple's devices all include thief-nabbing tech.
These two items are fairly recent and both stuck out to me as unique and interesting glimpses into the future of our tech and our living room.
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