Apple patents location-aware iPhone laser tag
You can run, but you can’t hide
The patent-happy engineers at Cupertino have filed yet another wacky and bizarre trandemark at the US patent office, this time turning your Apple brand mobile into a laser tag gun.
The dryly titled “Interactive Gaming with Co-Located, Networked Direction and Location Aware Devices” would use almost every sensor inside your device - including the camera, gyroscope, compass, accelerometer and GPS - to turn your iPhone into a location-aware, augmented reality laser tag peripheral.
You be hereEach player would be rocking an iPhone, which is constantly transmitting its location to other combatants. When you spot an enemy, you line them up in the view finder and tap “Fire!” to gun them down.
The idea’s not limited to firefights though: the patent describes location-aware, virtual racing games and moving your iPhone about to guide a ball through a maze.
While playing 21st century laser tag in the middle of a city sounds rad, Apple makes more patents than iPod revisions and you’ll rarely see anything come of them.
Enjoying your solar powered MacBook, biometric iPhone and smart iBike? Thought as much.
We’ll let you know if this ever goes further than a bizarre patent application.
[source: PatentlyApple]
