Apple’s next Vision Pro may send you on a mood-altering trip

It feels like one thing out of a sci-fi novel, however Apple might be engaged on a option to allow you to alter your temper simply by telling its Vision Pro headset the way you need to really feel. That’s in accordance with a recently granted patent (quantity 11703944) that outlines the entire futuristic concept.

It’s an odd idea, and one which sounds woven proper out of a Philip Okay. Dick story. In actual fact, in that writer’s Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? there’s a machine that places customers into no matter temper they need. It sounds as if Apple’s inventors have been studying a bit sci-fi of their spare time.

The patent explains the way you may be capable to ask your Apple machine that will help you slip right into a sure temper, similar to feeling relaxed, blissful, and even frightened. The machine might then current a batch of computer-generated content material primarily based on what it is aware of you reply to, with the objective of constructing you’re feeling the best way that you simply requested.

For instance, Apple says if you’re at the moment feeling calm and need to really feel alert, your machine might show a picture of a standing canine. Or if you’re agitated and need to really feel relaxed, you may see a video of a hummingbird.

Apple would be capable to work out your temper by gathering “audio knowledge, psychological measurements, physique pose knowledge, and/or eye monitoring knowledge,” which might be collected from the headset, an Apple Watch, or another machine. Apple’s machine would know what works and what doesn’t by measuring your present and previous reactions to numerous sorts of content material you’re proven. This might assist it produce simpler mood-altering content material subsequent time.

A glimpse of the longer term?

A big chunk of the patent is spent discussing digital actuality (VR) and augmented actuality (AR), so it appears potential that Apple is pondering of mixing these mood-altering results with some form of VR or AR content material. That might be significantly efficient when a Imaginative and prescient Professional person is watching a movie or playing a game utilizing one in all Apple’s headset, and would convey an additional diploma of immersion to the expertise.

But whereas Apple’s patent may be well-intentioned, there may be actually an air of the dystopian about it. Many readers will doubtless be involved that something with the power to change a person’s temper might probably be misused in ways in which weren’t meant. If Apple ever does implement this method, there must be rigorous safeguards in place — and a variety of work put in to persuade folks that it’s one thing they’d need to use.

Since that is only a patent, it’d by no means come to the Imaginative and prescient Professional and may be an occasion of Apple exploring numerous fantastical concepts. Nonetheless, it’s one thing to keep watch over, and might be an indicator of the route future Apple headsets might take.

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