New Apple patent reveals the tech giant is exploring 3D hand-tracking

A newly released patent shows Apple is exploring an iPhone feature that can identify hand movements and gestures.

The feature is called 3D hand-tracking and is one of 36 Apple patents just released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, as reported by Patently Apple. Most of the patents are related to mundane things like battery power and wireless hardware, but 3D tracking is much more interesting: The feature would use the iPhone X's TrueDepth camera system, which currently enables the iPhone X to recognize faces.

To accurately scan faces, the TrueDepth camera shoots out some 30,000 invisible, infrared dots onto an iPhone user's face, allowing the phone to accurately identify someone's unique facial features. Presumably, this same technology would be used to identify how a hand is moving or gesturing in 3D space.  Read more...