23 April 2021, 10:04 am Apple wins a patent that combines augmented reality (AR) with thermal technology to turn any surface into a virtual touchscreen. The recently approved AR technology patent, which would use thermal cameras built into AR glasses, could go to market as early as 2022. Apple's Thermal Touch: Creating Touchscreens From Almost Everything Apple's patent titled "Method and Device for Detecting a Touch Between a First Object and a Second Object," is made possible through the tech giant's acquisition of the German AR software maker Metaio in 2015. The Apple patent, which was granted on Apr. 22, perfectly described the technical details on how to turn Metaio's 2014 demo to reality, which Patently Apple explained.