Rumors about the interest of Amazon in augmented reality have been circulating since Amazon received the US patent “Touch control for immersion in a tablet goggles accessory” (No. 9,158,15). This patent describes a method involving a head mounted display showing the images from the video output of an electronic device.
Source: Amazon Patent 9,158,115
The new patent does indeed describe how a future head mounted display would contain a second addressable layer that would make the display opaque in the area where the video is being shown. It is one aspect of an augmented reality device that may improve the viewing ability of video on augmented reality glasses. However, the patent does not describe on how such a device would be built but how one would use such a device. One touch will turn on the opaque layer and the video at the same time. It also describes that the opaque layer is turned off when the video stops.
One other claim includes the use of noise cancelling when the video is playing.
Analyst Comment
All this only shows that Amazon is thinking about video consumption on smartglasses. This is something that Amazon as a provider of video content should be interested in and it would come as a surprise if they are not weighing their options of entering the augmented reality field. However, nothing in this patent suggests that Amazon is actually developing its own hardware solution. (NH)
