Tis the season for Apple patents, with both hyper-reality 3D displays, and a system for making dynamically better battery life on the iPhone and iPod.
First up, the hyper-reality 3D display -- perfectly timed for the Avatar hype as well, we'll note -- involves changing the perspective of 3D object on the display to match the tracked head position of the user. As MacRumors points out, this sounds similar to what Johnny Chung Lee has previously demonstrated with a Wiimote.
Next up, Apple wants to track user preferences for volume and other settings and automagically apply them, and de-emphasize or skip songs the user seldom listens to. MacRumors also points out a second patent which would also alert users when there's not enough battery life left to play the movie they've just selected and offer to downgrade the video quality and/or reduce the brightness levels to try and get the whole thing in anyway.
As always, no one outside Steve Jobs knows if we humble consumers will ever see products using these patents, but it's nice to glimpse one of our possible infinite (loop) futures.
