Microsoft patents multi-part camera system for a foldable device

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Microsoft's fabled foldable device, referred to as Andromeda, has been the topic of so much speculation and so many patents that it's become hard to keep track of everything. However, if you've been eager to hear more about it, you may be in luck, as a newly-granted patent discovered by Windows Latest shows some new details of what could be Microsoft's foldable phone.

 

This time, the patent doesn't focus on the display, but on the camera system. It shows off a mechanism in which the device's camera is split into two, with one part on each half of the device itself. This would work so that the two camera parts can adjust when the device is folded and the camera mechanisms overlap, enabling certain features, such as more focusing options:

As just one example, the overlapped mode may provide for additional focusing options based on using optical elements in a second part of the device with a main camera part in a first part of the device when the first and second parts of the device are overlapped.

Whereas each of the parts might protrude from the phone when it is not folded, the contact between the two would force the other to adjust its position to reduce the tilt error when aligning the two cameras. This could happen, for example, through the use of magnetic force to move either part of the camera into a position where the two parts align more correctly.

 

There's a lot that isn't known about Microsoft's Andromeda device, as it could have anything from a single flexible display to a setup with three panels. Most importantly, it's not clear whether the device will come to market at all. In the meantime, Samsung seems to truly be gearing up to release a foldable phone sometime next year.

 

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