Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Sean Locke

Apple may soon have an improved software program for displaying video lectures. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

"Apple already runs a free service called iTunes U that helps colleges around the country manage online offerings, and several companies sell software that helps capture lecture video and slides as well. One unusual feature described in the new patent application, though, is the ability to determine automatically when to run video footage of the professor speaking and when to splice in images of lecture slides. As the patent application puts it, the software would determine "a time to switch the first and second streams from the event data."

While some believe the video lecture is an outdated form of online learning, combining lectures with multimedia such as slides is certainly a step in the right direction.