We generally don’t write about Apple’s patent trail but this jot covers an interesting patent related to the world of 3D. AppleInsider uncovered a patent from Apple that describes a Microsoft Xbox Kinect-like interface technology that is sans physical controller. Instead users use their hands to move items in the UI.

Entitled “Three-Dimensional Imaging and Display System” the Apple patent (application #20110298798) attributed to Christopher Krah of Apple. In a nutshell, the Apple patent describes a method that allows the control of a 3D computer interface via a 3-dimensional imaging and display apparatus that scans and detects physical movement within a volume of space. With the system, a user could perform gestures with their hands within a given volume of space in order to control the user-interface of their Mac computer. To learn more read here.

Ad Agency Walter Isaacson uses modo

For the recent holidays Walter Isaacson was hired by Philips Norelco to produce a new TV commercial for their new SensoTouch 3D rechargeable razor. They decided to re-imagine one of Norelco’s most popular holiday ads of all time, which was a stop-motion ad featuring Santa sledding through the snow atop one of their products.

For this new ad Isaacson turned to computer graphics studio re:think studios, of Chicago. re:think studios is a big-time Luxology modo user and turned to modo to produce the ad. “mod is blazing fast!” said Brian Bulock, director of CGI and partner at re:think studios. “And with the deadline we had on this spot, we needed every minute. I vote we put modo on the nice list.” You can watch the spot here at Vimeo.

Adobe to update Critical 3D Bugs in Acrobat

Adobe is slated to update critical 3D vulnerabilities in its Acrobat and Reader applications across platforms today. The bugs were discovered in December where the 3d file format .u3d contained memory corruption issues that could lead to code attacks. These were limited in practice to the Windows platform, says Adobe. To learn more visit this eWeek news report.

LumenRT Customer Story

Vue software maker e-on software has had a new product out for awhile now called LumenRT, a plugin product for SketchUp. The photorealistic rendering plugin has received good reviews in the industry.

You can learn a little bit about this product by watching and reading the customer profile of Matthew Stone, a landscape design professional in Australia, who switched from Autodesk 3D Studio Max to SketchUp with LumenRT for its rendering platform. Read the interview here.

Under communist law, it was actually illegal to own a personal computer, according to Gabor Bojar, the company’s founder, who remarked: “A real entrepreneur is never afraid to take a risk.” Gabor risked a prison sentence by taking a strictly embargoed product (the Mac) onboard a plane from the West to Budapest, so that six months later they could unveil ArchiCAD for the Mac.

Gabor’s remarks during the unveiling are partly included in the blog post here. They are a wonderful testament (to Jobs and Graphisoft itself) and an illuminating story for people of the West in particular to read.

Read the blog post here.

Crafted by Hungarian sculptor Erno Toth, the life-like bronze statue stands near the entrance of architectural software maker Graphisoft’s Budapest headquarters building.

The relationship between Graphisoft and Apple can be traced to the 1980’s, when Jobs came across the first version of Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD software running on an Apple Lisa computer at the 1984 CeBIT show in Germany. His first impression of the software led him to throw Apple’s support behind the development and distribution of ArchiCAD.

01 - State of Steve Jobs dedicated and placed in Graphisoft Park in Budapest, Hungary.

“With its attention to excellence in every detail, Graphisoft Park’s environment embodies the spirit of Steve Jobs,” said Viktor Varkonyi, CEO of Graphisoft. “I can’t think of a better place to commemorate the man and his legacy.”

ArchiFlash Details

ArchiFlash runs on iOS for iPhone and contains over 1,160 flash cards covering all multiple-choice sections of the ARE. Besides the flashcard based question format the cards contain timesaving charts, essential definitions, diagrams, drawings, key equations and a whole lot more.

You can choose to study in various ways, including studying by division, study by content (eg: plumbing, wind forces, architectural history, etc) or study by question type (eg: definitions, drawings, charts or diagrams).

01 - NALSA's ArchiFlash 2.0 is fully updated for latest ARE 4.0 architect's exam and runs on your iPhone or iPad.

ArchiFlash 2.0 for ARE 4.0 allows you to shuffle the deck, save your place, bookmark cards and perform searches on terms.

The program runs on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, though it is designed for the iPhone sized format. It requires iOS 4.0.1 or later. The program is 149.99.USD and is available from the iTunes Store. To learn more visit NALSA online here.

A webpage dedicated to the planned event states: “Graphisoft considers Steve Jobs the greatest hero of the information age. We believe such superlatives are warranted: indeed, we cannot be entirely objective with respect to Steve Jobs, because to a large extent, Graphisoft ArchiCAD owes its global success to him. In 1984, Apple was willing to give Graphisoft a chance.”

BIM Begins on Apple Lisa

ArchiCAD is largely considered the very first true BIM (Building Information Modeling) software program, inventing and coining the term “virtual building” in the process of developing 3D CAD for architects which enabled them to literally build the building, completely, in 3D on the computer. “The first version of ArchiCAD ran on a Lisa computer, the immediate predecessor to the Macintosh,” reports the company. “We exhibited this program at the 1984 CEBIT in Hannover, where Steve Jobs saw it and decided to give Apple’s full support to its development and distribution. Apple gave us cash and computers at a time when Graphisoft was a young company with very limited resources; the technology represented by those computers was not even available in our part of the world.”

01 - Ark-Coca-Cola skyscraper wins fifth design excellence award. The project is a BIM achievement in Australia and was designed using Graphisoft ArchiCAD.

ArchiCAD quickly became available on the Mac and remained an exclusive on the Mac well into the 1990’s. Apple introduced the young Hungarian company to its global distribution network, which the company relies on to this day, helping sell and represent ArchiCAD in countries around the world.

“In 1985, after Steve Jobs left Apple, the company lost its soul,” states Graphisoft on this webpage. “At the time, many of our partners said that Graphisoft was the guardian of Apple’s spirit and soul. Some even said that we were the ‘real Apple’ at that time. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple 12 years later, the company again began to create miracles.”

“The working environment at Graphisoft Park embodies the spirit of Steve Jobs, which strives for excellence in every detail. Our built environment aims to inspire and promote this passion for quality in the talented people who work here. Graphisoft Park is indeed a fitting location for a statue commemorating Steve Jobs and his legacy.”

To learn more about Graphisoft’s thoughts on Steve Jobs and its view on Apple and the Graphisoft connection, click here. The event takes place in front of the Graphisoft building, 1031 Budapest, Zahony u, 7, G Building, at 3:00PM CET.

Those who wish to attend can RSVP by contacting Julianna Gulden, Graphisoft PR at: jgulden@graphisoft.com

Back in 2010 Apple filed a patent labeled “Multi-Dimensional Desktop” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The filed patent shows a UI that is capable of allowing the user to put or file things behind other shortcuts or documents. Most importantly, the user would be able to “sprawl” across the new 3D interface’s surfaces. Another interesting aspect is that the new 3D UI would support the ability to handle more complex shapes than the simple  four-sided square or rectangles found in today’s operating systems. One design in the patent filing shows a tetrahedron-shaped environment with curved intersections between each face–indicating that the future OS would allow the user to customize the shapes and landscape of their computer’s interface.

To read more go to AppleInsider’s post here.

The ARM Rationale

Architosh is not privy to any information that would lead us to believe this. It is just a matter of understanding Jobsian Logic. Such logic would inform you that Apple will take–when it has the reasonable opportunity–any path that allows it to gain unique advantages on their hardware and software fronts. Especially if this path enables them added control, first mover advantage or unique IP strengths.

This is the path it took with the iPad. When Architosh put together its final predictions on what the first iPad would hold we narrowed down on the fact that Apple had acquired PA Semi for a reason. We knew ARM was in the iPad…but what ARM chip?

“What would be really stunning today is if Apple has based the device on its own silicon design–namely that it has utilized its PA Semi group…”

(Read Architosh’s article that talked about an Apple touch device in the vertical markets...)

Control, First-Mover Advantage and IP Strengths

When Apple bought PA Semi it gained immediate intellectual property  (IP) strengths. Dan Dobberpuhl, who founded PA Semi was a lead designer for the well-regarded Alpha microprocessor as well as the StrongARM processor. Some speculated that Apple mainly wanted access to the PA Semi patents, not so much the 150 person strong PA Semi team.

As it turns out Dobberpuhl left Apple along with a small contingent of former PA Semi engineers and joined Amarjit Gill, a former principal at PA Semi who founded Silicon Valley start-up Agnilux. That company was since acquired by Google last year. And nobody knew exactly what Agnilux was actually doing, leaving a big mystery behind Google’s intentions.

The ARM processor was already highly involved in the smartphone market so adopting it wasn’t giving Apple any first-mover advantage. But it did come with some additional control since PA Semi had the highest level architectural license with ARM back in the UK. With it they could design their own modified ARM architectures. Apple’s A4 and A5 processors are unique ARM-based chips for Apple, thus the control issue and differentiation which many assumed Apple bought PA Semi for in the first place.

ARM the PCs

Going back to first-mover advantages, moving its personal computer business from Intel x86 over to ARM may or may not have any first-mover advantages for Apple. The Mac mainly competes with Windows. And Microsoft has already announced it is moving Windows to ARM processors. However, Microsoft’s moves are not entirely clear either. They appear to be moving over to ARM for Windows on slates.

Regardless, Apple can likely see the writing is on the wall when it comes to the future of ARM. ARM processors top Intel in the area of power consumption over performance. They are very efficient. ARM also has more momentum than Intel (see this chart over at this Cnet article).

(see this great Wikipedia article on the history of the ARM Architecture here.)

Even Nvidia has announced an ARM-based CPU for future supercomputing and high-end PCs. Nvidia announced at CES 2011 this year that they are taking aim at Intel with “Project Denver.”

And just this week IDC predicted ARM would capture 13 percent of the PC processor market by 2015. That assumes we can still “uniformly differentiate” the PC market from the MID market (mobile internet device market).

The Mac on ARM

So combined with what we know about ARM today, and what those like IDC are predicting about ARM tomorrow, and with a common sense approach to extrapolating Jobsian logic, it would appear more likely than not that Apple has already started the move to ARM for the Mac.

Iterative Design Professionals

The world of architecture is a world of iteration. It starts in architecture school, an indoctrination in the back and forth process of iteration, revision, refinement and finalization. This design process is not unique to architects but architects in today’s practice have particular challenges facing iteration in their field.

What are these challenges?

Quite simply, buildings can be vastly complicated. Even today’s luxury-level custom homes can be remarkably technical and challenging–and architects do struggle to keep their design process rigorous and orderly. The orderly part is there to help them keep track of the myriad decisions, responses and inputs into the architectural design process itself. And Mac OS X Lion will help them do this better.

This Lion Can Walk Backwards

It is routine for architects to create multiple design iterations, as noted above. Once schematic level design settles down into production it is still common for remaining smaller design tasks to go through multiple stages of design change and evolution. And this says nothing about issues that spring up in the field and force architects to revisit previously concluded areas of a building’s design.

Keeping track of all these changes typically forces architects to save and store multiple versions of documents with elaborate file-naming conventions to keep them orderly and meaningful for future search. In comes Mac OS X Lion. The Lion to the rescue!

01 - Mac OS X Lion features Versions. This is a screen shot of Apple's Mac OS X Lion Preview web page. Versions will be very popular with design professionals who iterate highly in their normal course of creative work, saving them stress and time and file directories.

Mac OS X Lion will feature something called Versions at the file disk level. It is essentially Time Machine built into the end user’s experience. And architects are going to be some of the happiest users of this new feature. What Mac OS X Lion does is “record” the evolution of a document as you create it. This will relieve architects (and other similar creatives) from the burden of feeling like they need to track every single major or minor design iteration into a separate “save-as” version–cluttering up directories with files that are essentially only holding small deltas in design differences.

Versions

With “versioning” built in architects can actually change design elements freely and if they want to go back and capture that older design iteration they can use Lion’s Versions to do that. (see screen shot above, image 01). Versions shows you the current document (state of) next to a cascade of previous versions–in an interface similar to Time Machine. You can see how your design work looked at any given time, you can revert entirely back to it or quickly copy and paste work from a previous version into the current version.

Now that last ability with Lion’s Versions is going to be very useful. Say you are an architect and you designed the layout for a master bathroom in a home. Later you developed a more creative approach and moved forward with that layout instead, only to discover that the client seemed to be more interested in features of the design not present in the second design but the one you did earlier. Did you save it? Not likely–as you believed you had created a much better solution.

With Mac OS X Lion you can quickly go back to that previous version and copy and paste all or part of that earlier design into the current design. Walla! Time saved!

To learn more about Mac OS X Lion and other useful features to creatives working under intense time pressure (film, architecture, publishing, etc) daily, visit this page. Lion will also have a feature called Auto Save.

Learn more here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

Microsoft’s Kinect 3D technology for the Xbox 360 continues to show up in places not belonging to Redmond’s products and intentions. The latest of these is on the Mac platform. Thanks to a free app in the Apple Mac App Store users on the Mac can now see what they look like in 3d on their Mac.

Called Kinect 3D Viewer, the app lets you plug in your Kinect into your computer and view a 3D visualization of the depth data the Kinect accessory is capturing. To learn more read this report.

Apple 3D News and Intel Sandy Bridge

We have heard through a source that Apple continues to develop 3D technology in-house for future operating systems and devices implementation. Applications for what will be essentially “glass-less” 3D viewing technology may align with future gaming and or general computing.

Another interesting bit is that hackers have worked to get Snow Leopard installed on a “hackintosh” machine with Intel’s new “Sandy Bridge” processors on it. The new Intel Core i5-2500k CPU to be precise. That is the report and while it has already been suggested Sandy Bridge is slated for future Macs we will just have to wait and see.

Sandy Bridge generation CPUs from Intel feature new architecture and integrated HD graphics on the same die as the main CPU.

Nvidia Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac

The high-end Nvidia Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac, with 256 Nvidia CUDA processing cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory, delivers exceptional graphics performance across a broad range of design, animation and video applications. With the new Nvidia Scalable Geometry Engine technology, the Quadro 4000 for Mac can process up to 890 million triangles per second, enabling professionals to design, iterate and deliver quality results in less time.

The Quadro 4000 for Mac supports a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/sec., over a 256 bit memory interface. It’s maximum display resolution is 2560×1600 pixels and it supports 3D stereo via a 3-pin Mini-DIN port. Shader Model 5.0, OpenGL 4.1 and Microsoft DirectX 11 round out support architectures.

The price for the Nvidia Quadro 4000 for Mac is 1199.USD and will be available from Apple directly and from select Apple resellers and system integrators. Requirements include: Mac OS X v10.6.5 or later, Mac Pro3,1 (early 2008), MacPro4,1 (early 2009) or MacPro 5,1 (mid-2010). To learn more visit this web page.

Marking a 16 Year Absence

That the company would produce such a savvy TV style commercial is not surprising given the amount of engineering effort that was required to implement the new native Mac OS X software for the return to Apple’s famed platform. What is, perhaps, a bit surprising is just how well the CAD giant has captured the spirit of Apple’s own ads.

01 - Screen capture image of the TV ad's opening frames.

The ad features an all new iMac prominently front and center while office workers from what looks like a typical architectural firm, begin to mingle and stand around the iMac. Accompanied by a very catching soundtrack (at this time we have not determined who has produced this song and who the singer/artist is and whether or not it is original) the whole commercial seems to capture the heartfelt wait and return of AutoCAD to the Mac platform by imagining its absence by focusing in on an Apple devotee’s workstation. In the spot the workstation features an iMac launching the new AutoCAD software and a vintage 90’s Apple coffee mug. The mug signifies Apple’s Mac past while marking the presence of a stalwart devotee of the Mac platform.

02 - For a few seconds in the early section of the new ad and old Apple coffee mug--very popular in the 90's--is seen next to the telephone and computer. The clever device marks nostalgia and dovotee-ism all at the same time.

The slick video also does a remarkable good job of showcasing the product’s strengths as a 3D application with several neat looking angles on various content produced by AutoCAD 2011 for Mac. For example it shows that the product is capable of hosting several viewports of your design content simultaneously.

03 - sophisticated computer graphics, no doubt partly produced on Autodesk's treasure trove of media applications, draw the eye into AutoCAD 2011 for Mac's slick interface.

It is completely unclear as to whether or not this very well executed video is going to make it to the television screen or just live on the Web. We would imagine that the company would at least run a 30-second version of it on TV in the near future.

We also believe that this new set of applications (remember the company is not just returning AutoCAD to Mac OS X, but has delivered a version to the iOS platform) may show up soon for Apple’s planned September iOS announcement. We just cannot picture Steve Jobs talking about updated iOS devices (iPods and iPads for sure…) without showcasing Autodesk’s new wares.

To see the full video go here.

The BumpTop user-interface technology will look somewhat familiar to those long-time Mac users who are aware of Apple’s forays into 3D interfaces going all the way back to the System 8 era.

You can check out the BumpTop UI technology is this YouTube video here. How Google would actually use this UI technology on a smartphone device is very unclear. Not all of this technology’s capabilities would suit a small screen device like a smartphone. However, it many of these same concerns  become opportunities on a device the size of the iPad.

One of the most popular screen video capturing applications used by CAD and 3D developers, TechSmith has announced updates to Camtasia Studio and a new native Camtasia for Mac, version 1.1. Camtasia has been very popular with the CAD community for years for helping to create product demos, training and client-walk thrus. Now the Mac community has a new native version built from the ground up to take advantage of the Apple Mac platform.

Camtasia for Mac is an ideal product to help CAD and BIM managers in creative firms like architecture practices create quick help and demo videos to distribute to staff and clients.

Freeform for iPad

Want to get a sense of what a drawing, CAD or BIM application on the iPad might be like? Take a look at the image below of Freeform, a new upcoming application for the upcoming iPad. The Apple iPad will be available this coming April 3, 2010. What you will notice about applications purpose-built for the iPad is that the much larger screen (compared to an iPhone or iPod touch) enables serious screen real estate for tool buttons (top and and left in the image of Freeform).

Earlier we wrote about goBIM, a new (and first) Building Information Modeling (BIM) application for the iPhone. The developer of goBIM will be working on an iPad version as well.

Freeform for iPad - an experimental "vector drawing app" gives indication of what is possible in the user-interface of the iPad.

Freeform is a true “vector drawing” application. Polygon objects can be created and modified, filled with colors and degrees of transparency and positioned accurately. We don’t know much about Freeform but this screen shot gives us a big sense of what is possible. Take a look at the top tool bar and buttons and you get a sense of the capabilities. We are seeing Alignment tools, perhaps Back-Forward tools (or could those be Booleans?) and arrangement items. On the left tool bar we have shapes, line, square and polyline with bezier-style editing capability.

It is not clear if the developer of Freeform is going to ship this product. It says “experimental vector drawing iPad app” on this web page. Not much else is known.

Over at WorldCAD Access Ralph Grabowski is asking the question of who will get their CAD software to work on iPad first? From what we recall there are already some basic vectorial drawing applications on the iPhone today. Do these count as CAD for iPad?

There is a mention (quoting Randall Newton of AECnews.com) that perhaps it will be the ArchiCAD folks or the Vectorworks folks who will get their CAD on iPad first. The assumption here is likely because they already make OS X native CAD software and because they are big software companies and can afford porting over to the ARM platform. Hmmm…perhaps?

Anyway, I’d be curious from Architosh readers to know what they think about CAD on the iPad. Would you want to draw on it or just do CAD mark-up work, particularly in meetings and in the field? Let us know…comments below appreciated!

Ashlar Vellum News

Ashlar-Vellum has announced the release of Service Pack 2 for Graphite version 8, its top-tier precision 2D/3D wireframe CAD software package.

Highlights of Graphite V8 SP 2 include the ability to support large format printers at higher resolution, direct access to tutorials and sample files from within Graphite and numerous bug fixes and functional improvements.

Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum commented, “This service pack supports our customers’ demand for bigger and better output from their printers.” The SP 2 update is free to all registered Graphite v8 users, including those with Cobalt and Xenon v8 users with a courtesy license to Graphite.

Ashlar-Vellum is a industry leader in CAD and 3D solid modeling software used in a multitude of industries from architecture to industrial and product design. To learn more about their line of native Mac and Windows software visit them here.

The A4

It is exciting for a couple of key reasons. Firstly, Apple bought PA Semiconductor a few years back and that group consisted of a “dream-team” of microprocessor designers. If you follow the PA Semi tag at the bottom of this story you can find some stories that will allow you to learn the details of PA Semi and who the group was. So with chip “dream team” in hand what would Apple do with that expertise? The obvious answer is create amazing processors that distinguish things like the iPad from rival products.  So the A4 is exciting because it is the first “child” from the PS Semi team.

The second reason it is exciting is because this first chip begs the question: what other future custom Apple chips are in the works? And what products may they go in? In particular, will the A4 go into the next version of the iPhone itself?

You see when you buy a “dream team,” then hide them away and come out with secret chips like the A4 and share absolutely no detail about its inner workings you create amazing drama. Period.

Sorry Steve if we are so darn excited about the A4 that we don’t seem to be focused solely on the iPad itself…but what do you expect?

The Secrecy

I actually applaud Apple for keeping the A4 so secret, even though it is personally killing me not to know the details. It’s just another fork of interest that will drive the media’s vectors back in the direction of the new iPad. Again, secrecy scores a point for Apple.

However, maybe the secrecy is because the A4 isn’t so custom after all? Perhaps it is simply an ARM Cortex A9-based multicore chip that happens to be quadcore. Does that sounds plausible? It does to me after reading up on ARM’s latest and greatest.

Apple has a somewhat unique and premium-class license with ARM which came by way of its PA Semi acquisition. Basically they can highly manipulate ARM chip architectures rather than simply package custom chips around ARM chip architectural modules. I suspect given the time Apple has had PA Semi that this first A4 chip is not as customized as Apple could eventually make it. But here are some basics that might exist in the A4 now:

A4 Possible and Known Internals:

• ARM Cortex A9-based architecture, modified by Apple
• Quadcore (?)
• 1 Ghz main frequency
• 2 MB L2 Cache
• 45 nanometer process
• 300 milliwatt max power use
• ARM NEON Processing Media Engine (?)

That’s the shortlist. Some of this we know and some of this we may not know for quite some time. You can see some pictures in this article from yesterday. Check them out, one is of the ARM Cortex A9 architecture. Write us or comment below. We’d appreciate your thoughts.

The 2008 Mac touch Concept

Let’s recap the  2008 January details of what we imagined (both Sheehan and Architosh) the future touch-based device would be like. Here were are essentials:

• Apple multi-touch based input
• 11 inch sized screen
• iPhone like front device appearance
• solid state memory (64-128 GB)
• Intel-based primary CPU
• ATI graphics
• ARM secondary processing unit
• modified Mac OS X operating system

In the last two years we have learned quite a bit of information that makes this earlier attempt at imagining the Mac touch incorrect. For starters, as we look at the list above, it is the second half of those bullet points that get very particular and hence very subject to change. Yet some of our concepts about “use” are likely spot on.

One reader's vision of what a Mac touch would look like, pictured here next to Black Mac Book

The Updated View

First of all in terms of a name Apple will likely surprise us this time. iSlate, iTablet, iScreen, Mac touch…unlike the iPhone name, which was obvious, there is no single name that makes perfect sense. One name that hasn’t been bandied about too much is iPad. This harks back of course to the Newton MessagePad, which Steve Jobs despised. The word “Pad” is likely not in the upcoming product name. If we hark back further we can look at Apple’s Juggarnaut Design Investigation which studied a touch-based device this size and that device was given the name WorkCase. There are just so many possibilities…we’ll just have to wait and see!

Getting back to the details we can now make some 2010 revisions to our 2008 ideas. Here is what Architosh believes will likely be introduced today:

• 10 inch computer screen, touch-based (Multi-touch)
• next-generation iPhone OS (which itself is a variant of the basis of Mac OS X)
• ARM-Architecture CPU (in-house Apple design a very real possibility here!!)
• Imagination Technologies GPU (PowerVR variant)

Further Details on Apple’s Announcement Today

We stick to our belief that the new touch based device will be able to serve two very distinguished groups of users who do not need the true-typing experience that can only be found on a laptop. We said this two years ago and we stand by this assumption for this new product. So let’s recap these groups and how the new device fits them:

Group One: Media Consumers

As we mentioned before we believe that “consumer computing is now the place where the ledging edge now exist” and this has only grown stronger since that last article. The new Apple tablet device will be a game-changer in software and a best-in-breed in hardware for this category. Expect more or less all of this:

• Direct Kindle competition: Apple will change the rules about how we obtain and consume the written word (books, magazines and maybe webzines) in much the same way they did with music with iTunes.
• Gaming: Apple’s iPhone is a stunning success in the world of gaming and the new tablet device will continue to push this success even further. Leading edge OpenGL ES  combined with superior best-in-breed GPU hardware (Imagination Technologies?) and innovative API in the OS will propel this device forward.
• Movies, TV and Music: As we emphasized before a wired connection to iTunes on the computer (a la AppleTV) can make the slate device a great movie watching screen in bed or on the couch.

Group Two: Professional Vertical and Education

We also said that light typers need a device that is touch based and is ideal for the field. This means medicine, science, field workers in many industries, including AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) to education. We don’t see Apple emphasizing this today but the fundamental technologies that are there for gaming will make this a great platform for many of these vertical professional applications.

• Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). This industry needs a great touch-screen with pen-input option platform badly. Viewing a big book is really no different than viewing a big set of construction drawings. Multi-touch opens up so many possibilities.
• Medicine is an ideal place for the new tablet from Apple. Doctors today already use the iPhone and iPod touch for similar use today
• Sciences: field and lab can utilize a touch-based device
• Field workers in all industries today rely on a multitude of platforms but none of them have the promise and capability of the iPhone OS and eco-system of software development and distribution

Closing Comments

Apple’s future will be revealed at 1:00pm EST as Steve Jobs hits the stage in San Francisco. It will be exciting to see what he introduces. We know that Apple has been working on a fifth product category for many years because Jobs said so years ago.

What will really be stunning today is if Apple has based the device on its own silicon design–namely that it has utilized its PA Semi group it acquired a few years ago to design a custom ARM Architecture main processor (CPU). This will mark a big moment for Apple for it will mean that the company is willing to compete with Intel and other semi-conductor designers head-to-head in order to differentiate itself from its competition.

While a home button is present in the center lower region on the upper region we find both an optical sensor and a proximity sensor. A speaker sits along side those. An accelerometer and microphone flanks the home button at the bottom.

You can check out Gus’ article here for a picture. He did a good job of digging up the background on the patent itself, which belongs to three French Apple employees.

It seems clear that Apple intends utilize motion and optical sensor-based user interface technology with its next revolutionary product. We saw an example of this in our report that linked to a video and we are seeing more and more details pour out on its upcoming tablet-like computer.

What’s exciting about this is when we wrote about the Mac touch product concept more than a year ago we talked about such a handheld device being great for field workers…of which the AEC (architecture/engineering/construction) market is a excellent example. Having a tablet computer wherein you can easily rotate BIM models or 3D models of buildings in the field using your body and head would absolutely rock! Apple intends to make more and better use of our bodies for future handheld devices as well as our voices (note the microphone in this patent!). This is all very exciting stuff.

Earlier we published a brief report on Apple’s possible use of a new 3D display technology which tracked the movement of the user’s body and head in order to rotate and move around 3D objects within the computer interface. Readers interested in that story will likely find this MacRumors piece centered on Apple patent research filings also of interest.

We are a bit fascinated by this new technology and its possible use in upcoming Apple products for obvious reasons. 3D subjects are a main part of what Architosh is all about. Today there are innovative 3D mice that enable the user to navigate around around 3D objects or within 3D spaces. These products work very well compared to alternative methods.

What Apple may be planning with Hyper Reality 3D Display technology can extend current methods. If you look closely at the Apple patents referenced above you will notice that 2D user interface interaction is also possible. To what degree uses may want to move their heads and bodies to interact with such display technology is an interesting question.

Apple is predicting production of nearly 10 million units in the first year. As many have predicted–including here on Architosh–the new multi-touch device will look similar to a large iPhone with a 10.1 inch touch screen, a virtual keyboard and support for video-conferencing and e-books.

The tablet will be equipped with sophisticated 3D graphics and according to sources will cost under 1000.USD.

No Macworld Launch

Without Apple’s participation in Macworld Expo 2010 the tech industry is waiting for a planned announcement by Apple at a special event. AppleInsider has reported that Apple has scheduled an event for January 26 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. This actually falls before the “moved-out” new schedule for Macworld Expo.

Apple iPad

No matter what Apple calls its new tablet-based device, some anticipated facts about its features include either a 7 inch or 10.1 inch multi-touch screen with virtual keyboard. The screen resolution will likely be larger than the 320×480 pixel size of the iPod touch and iPhone.

Internally the new tablet device will run a version of the iPhone OS rather than a version of Mac OS X, although both share the same core software technology and OS kernel. Most experts and pundits believe the device will run on an ARM-based microprocessor and this author believes this device will very likely run on the first chip developed by Apple’s PA Semi chip engineering team.

You can check out the video here. It is undoubtedly pretty cool!

Instead of using a mouse or even a 3D mouse to rotate and spin 3D models the user would simply move their head or body to “look behind” the model. In the video posted by Houston Neal a user simply rocks his body to one side and the model rotates around. Perhaps in combination with a mouse click these movements could be further extended. It is not clear from the video example how one would, say, rotate the building model all the way around.

Houston also writes that this technology could work with 2D imagery as well, like electronic blue prints. The Head-Tracking technology–which works through a camera on the computer or monitor–would detect movement and upon detecting it implement various pan or scroll functions in software.

Apple and 3D Head-Tracking

Apple would likely implement this new technology as an extension of the user-interface interaction capabilities, adding to what the user can do with the mouse, track-pad, voice and camera. Users familiar with Apple’s latest OS know that the Apple touch technology–first introduced on the iPhone–has migrated to the Mac and one can imagine innovative ways of merging combinations of the track-pad with this 3D Head-Tracking technology.

Exposing it as an API would allow developers of 3D software (CAD, BIM, modeling/rendering/animation, etc.) to implement new ways of navigating in 3D within their 3D-based applications. It is very promising technology to see and it will be very interesting to see how Apple would use it.