New Apple Patent Puts Motion Sensor in iPhone
Submitted by Jon Reed on
Titled "Imaging Range Finder Fabrication" at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple's new patent application describes a range finder comprised of a lens and an array of emitters and photodetectors in "optical communication with the lens." The device would "be incorporated into ... a mobile phone, digital media player, or a personal computer."

According to the text, the array of emitters would emit light that would be directed by the iPhone's lens toward an object. The light bouncing back off the object would pass back through the lens and be received by the photodetectors in the array. With