All the way back in November of 2012, it came to light that Microsoft had patented a pair of augmented reality glasses the company had taken to calling "Fortaleza." While Microsoft has yet to reveal their plans, if any for the new glasses, the entire patent in whole has been posted online.
Thanks to NeoGAF poster SlipperyMoose, who led the entire 'net to where the patent was posted.
Since officially announcing the Xbox One earlier this year, Microsoft has yet to mention the glasses. As a result, no one's sure if the company's intention is to use the glasses with the new console, something else, or even at all. The patent description consistently describes using the glasses at a "live event," but the description is probably just to broaden the glasses' appeal to a much wider demographic. It's possible that Microsoft could just be gearing up for competition with Apple and Google, who also have their own patents on AR glasses.
According to an older official description of the patent, they once were planned as, "A computer implemented method providing supplemental information to a user with a head mounted display viewing a live event, comprising: receiving an indication that a user is attending a live event, the live event having an event duration; determining a field of view of the user through the head mounted display, and objects within the field of view at the live event; retrieving supplemental information describing at least the objects in the field of view of the user during a portion of the live event; determining elements of said supplemental information to present to the user in the head mounted display; and displaying the supplemental information in one or more display elements in the head mounted display."
It's since been "upgraded" to incorporate some of Kinect 2's abilities, and can receive "eye-tracking information, depth information, facial recognition information, potential player head-mounted display device information, and/or potential player voice data. The program associates the invitation with the potential player using the eye-tracking information, the depth information, the facial recognition information, the potential player head-mounted display device information, and/or the potential player voice data. The program matches a potential player account with the potential player. The program receives an acceptance response from the potential player, and joins the potential player account with a user account in participating in the multiplayer game."
Fortaleza had previously been mentioned in a supposed leaked document that discussed various specs for the console, all the way back when we knew it as the Xbox 720.
There's a fair bit of tech jargon and legalese, but you can read the entire patent here. Microsoft has yet to make any comment on its plans for the glasses.
