Patents by Inventor Bennett S Wilburn

Bennett S Wilburn has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240029661
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower and higher resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 2, 2023
    Publication date: January 25, 2024
    Inventors: Cheng Chen, Jason C. Sauers, Fletcher R. Rothkopf, David W. Lum, Chun-Yao Huang, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov, Graham B. Myhre, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Shih Chang Chang, Wonjae Choi, Cheuk Chi Lo
  • Publication number: 20230393405
    Abstract: Eyewear such as a head-mounted device may include display-optimized lenses. The lenses may be optimized for viewing an external display while also providing sun protection for the user's eyes. The external display may form part of a handheld electronic device that serves as a controller for the head-mounted device. The lenses in the head-mounted device may reduce ambient light brightness while maintaining the brightness of the external display so that the user can use the external display while wearing the head-mounted device. The user may, for example, provide touch input to the external display to adjust display content on the head-mounted display. The lenses may include a polarizer and a color filter having a transmission spectrum curve with peaks corresponding to the primary colors of the external display. The lenses may be removable clip-on lenses and the light filter may be an electrochromic filter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 22, 2023
    Publication date: December 7, 2023
    Inventors: Jonathan C Moisant-Thompson, Alexandre Chapiro, Bennett S Wilburn, Seth E Hunter, Ove Lyngnes, Nicolas P Bonnier, Cameron A Harder, Nawaf Al-Baghly
  • Patent number: 11838495
    Abstract: An electronic device may provide visual content at a virtual image distance that is farther from a user than the physical distance of the device from the user. A display in the device may have a transmissive spatial light modulator and beam steering device that are illuminated by a plane wave illumination system to provide computer-generated hologram images, may have a waveguide-based system that ensures that image content is presented at a desired virtual image distance, or may be a light-field display. The display may be used to display a left image in a left eye box and a right image in a right eye box. When viewed from the eye boxes, the left and right images fuse and are visible at a virtual image distance that is farther from the user than the distance physically separating the eye boxes from the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Eric J. Hansotte, Fu-Chung Huang, Jonathan C. Moisant-Thompson
  • Patent number: 11810516
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower and higher resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Cheng Chen, Jason C. Sauers, Fletcher R. Rothkopf, David W. Lum, Chun-Yao Huang, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov, Graham B. Myhre, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Shih Chang Chang, Wonjae Choi, Cheuk Chi Lo
  • Patent number: 11803060
    Abstract: Eyewear such as sunglasses may include display-optimized lenses. The lenses may be optimized for viewing an external display and/or for viewing a display in the head-mounted device while also providing sun protection for the user's eyes. The lenses may include a polarizer and a color filter that are designed for a given target display. Lenses that are optimized for a display that emits linearly polarized light may include a linear polarizer. Lenses that are optimized for a display that emits circularly polarized light may include a circular polarizer. The circular polarizer may include a quarter wave plate and a linear polarizer. The color filter may have a transmission spectrum curve with peaks corresponding to the primary colors of the target display so that the color and brightness of display light is preserved while the brightness of sunlight is reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Jonathan C. Moisant-Thompson, Alexandre Chapiro, Seth E. Hunter, Ove Lyngnes, Nicolas P. Bonnier
  • Patent number: 11301969
    Abstract: Some implementations provide improved user experiences on head mounted devices (HMDs) that provide near eye viewing, e.g., HMDs that display distorted images and provide lenses that undistort the images for the user. The images are produced using distortion that is corrected dynamically based on context to conserve device resources. To do so, a context associated with a state of the user, the HMD, or content being viewed on the HMD is tracked during the user experience. For example, the device may predict pupil position, eye state, eye gaze direction, or eye fixation, content type, connection mode, and other context. The device uses the tracked context to determine how to correct distortion for the images at different points during the user experience. For example, new distortion corrections may be computed and used while the user's gaze is moving and previously-determined distortion corrections may be used while the user's gaze is fixed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 12, 2022
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Moinul Khan, Simon Fortin-Deschenes, Yanli Zhang, Bennett S. Wilburn, Sterling G. Orsten, Nan Zhu, James Zhou
  • Patent number: 11105963
    Abstract: Optical systems may have tunable lenses with focal lengths that are adjusted by control circuitry. A display may produce image light that is received by a tunable lens. The display may be transparent so that light from objects can pass through the display and be received by the tunable lens. The tunable lens may include a birefringent lens element and a polarization rotator and may receive light that has been linearly polarized by passing through a linear polarizer. The polarization rotator may be operable in a first state in which the polarization of light passing through the polarization rotator is not rotated and a second state in which the polarization of light passing through the polarization rotator is rotated by 90°. The birefringent lens element may be formed from a cured liquid crystal polymer or other polymer and may have a liquid crystal additive to enhance birefringence.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 31, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yuan Chen, Bennett S. Wilburn, Cheng Chen, Michael Slootsky, Shuang Wang, Zhibing Ge
  • Patent number: 11068149
    Abstract: Described herein are techniques that offer a class of user-interaction styles for indirect user interaction with a two-dimensional virtual space (“desktop”) using touch-sensitive control surface of a user-input device (such as a mobile phone). Some described techniques enable a user to point, pan and scale within a large virtual two-dimensional space with input from a touch surface of a handheld device, with the output of the user interaction being rendered on a visual display unit (other than the touch surface).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2021
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Darren K. Edge
  • Publication number: 20210142736
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower and higher resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 15, 2021
    Publication date: May 13, 2021
    Inventors: Cheng Chen, Jason C. Sauers, Fletcher R. Rothkopf, David W. Lum, Chun-Yao Huang, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov, Graham B. Myhre, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Shih Chang Chang, Wonjae Choi, Cheuk Chi Lo
  • Patent number: 10930219
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower (L) and higher (M, H) resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Cheng Chen, Jason C. Sauers, Fletcher R. Rothkopf, David W. Lum, Chun-Yao Huang, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov, Graham B. Myhre, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Shih Chang Chang, Wonjae Choi, Cheuk Chi Lo
  • Patent number: 10726811
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display such as an organic light-emitting diode display. Electronic devices may also include a number of sensors such as accelerometers and gaze detection sensors. A graphics processing unit (GPU) may render digital pixel values for pixels in the device display. Frames (F2) with long rendering times may cause latency. To reduce latency, an image frame may be displayed for an extended period of time (68) to wait for the subsequent frame (F2) to finish rendering. Once the subsequent image frame (F2) has finished rendering, the subsequent image frame may be displayed without delay. To increase the lifespan of the display, variable persistence may be used. Sensor data and other factors may be used to dynamically determine persistence for minimal motion blur and maximum display lifespan. Sensor data may also be used to determine refresh rates for different portions of the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sheng Zhang, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Chaohao Wang, Cheng Chen, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov
  • Publication number: 20190189086
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display such as an organic light-emitting diode display. Electronic devices may also include a number of sensors such as accelerometers and gaze detection sensors. A graphics processing unit (GPU) may render digital pixel values for pixels in the device display. Frames (F2) with long rendering times may cause latency. To reduce latency, an image frame may be displayed for an extended period of time (68) to wait for the subsequent frame (F2) to finish rendering. Once the subsequent image frame (F2) has finished rendering, the subsequent image frame may be displayed without delay. To increase the lifespan of the display, variable persistence may be used. Sensor data and other factors may be used to dynamically determine persistence for minimal motion blur and maximum display lifespan. Sensor data may also be used to determine refresh rates for different portions of the display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2017
    Publication date: June 20, 2019
    Inventors: Sheng Zhang, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Chaohao Wang, Cheng Chen, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov
  • Publication number: 20190172399
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have displays. The display may have regions of lower (L) and higher (M, H) resolution to reduce data bandwidth and power consumption for the display while preserving satisfactory image quality. Data lines may be shared by lower and higher resolution portions of a display or different portions of a display with different resolutions may be supplied with different numbers of data lines. Data line length may be varied in transition regions between lower resolution and higher resolution portions of a display to reduce visible discontinuities between the lower and higher resolution portions. The lower and higher resolution portions of the display may be dynamically adjusted using dynamically adjustable gate driver circuitry and dynamically adjustable data line driver circuitry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2017
    Publication date: June 6, 2019
    Inventors: Cheng Chen, Jason C. Sauers, Fletcher R. Rothkopf, David W. Lum, Chun-Yao Huang, Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov, Graham B. Myhre, Bennett S. Wilburn, Paolo Sacchetto, Shih Chang Chang, Wonjae Choi, Cheuk Chi Lo
  • Patent number: 9100581
    Abstract: Samples of a scene are acquired in synchronization with finely interleaved varying conditions such as lighting, aperture, focal length, and so forth. A time-varying sample at each pixel for each condition is reconstructed. Time multiplexed interleaving allows for real-time, live applications, while handling motion blur naturally. Effects such as real-time video relighting of a scene is possible. Time interleaved exposures also allow segmentation of a scene, and allows for constrained special effects such as triangulation matting using a multi-color interleaved chroma key.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 4, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Moshe Benezra
  • Patent number: 8619153
    Abstract: A method of calibrating a brightness value measured by a camera with an amount of light received by the camera includes creating a series of measurements, wherein for each measurement the amount of light received at an image plane in the camera is controlled to be a known ratio of two opposed irradiance values: a high irradiance value and a low irradiance value. Each ratio is correlated with the brightness value measured by the camera. A function is obtained describing the correlation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Yasuyuki Matsushita, Bennett S. Wilburn
  • Publication number: 20120098976
    Abstract: A method of calibrating a brightness value measured by a camera with an amount of light received by the camera includes creating a series of measurements, wherein for each measurement the amount of light received at an image plane in the camera is controlled to be a known ratio of two opposed irradiance values: a high irradiance value and a low irradiance value. Each ratio is correlated with the brightness value measured by the camera. A function is obtained describing the correlation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 3, 2012
    Publication date: April 26, 2012
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yasuyuki Matsushita, Bennett S. Wilburn
  • Patent number: 8111290
    Abstract: A method of calibrating a brightness value measured by a camera with an amount of light received by the camera includes creating a series of measurements, wherein for each measurement the amount of light received at an image plane in the camera is controlled to be a known ratio of two opposed irradiance values: a high irradiance value and a low irradiance value. Each ratio is correlated with the brightness value measured by the camera. A function is obtained describing the correlation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Yasuyuki Matsushita, Bennett S. Wilburn
  • Publication number: 20110304557
    Abstract: Described herein are techniques that offer a class of user-interaction styles for indirect user interaction with a two-dimensional virtual space (“desktop”) using touch-sensitive control surface of a user-input device (such as a mobile phone). Some described techniques enable a user to point, pan and scale within a large virtual two-dimensional space with input from a touch surface of a handheld device, with the output of the user interaction being rendered on a visual display unit (other than the touch surface).
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 9, 2010
    Publication date: December 15, 2011
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Darren K. Edge
  • Publication number: 20110242334
    Abstract: Samples of a scene are acquired in synchronization with finely interleaved varying conditions such as lighting, aperture, focal length, and so forth. A time-varying sample at each pixel for each condition is reconstructed. Time multiplexed interleaving allows for real-time, live applications, while handling motion blur naturally. Effects such as real-time video relighting of a scene is possible. Time interleaved exposures also allow segmentation of a scene, and allows for constrained special effects such as triangulation matting using a multi-color interleaved chroma key.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 30, 2010
    Publication date: October 6, 2011
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Bennett S. Wilburn, Moshe Benezra
  • Patent number: 7929142
    Abstract: Photodiode-based bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurement is described. Multiple photodiodes are distributed approximately symmetrically at a fixed distance from a surface to be measured. One or more of the photodiodes are directed to emit light, while readings are gathered from the other photodiodes that are not emitting light. The readings are processed based on previously measured calibration data to generate BRDF values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Moshe Ben-Ezra, Yasuyuki Matsushita, Bennett S Wilburn, Xiaoyang Li