A patent that Microsoft filed late last month has emerged, providing new insight into what the company may be aiming to accomplish with its next console.

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Discovered by sleuths over at the NeoGAF and Beyond3D forums, the patent was filed on June 21st and specifically refers to “ scalable multimedia computer system architecture ,” a nebulous term that doesn’t point to any one thing in particular. However, the language and included graphics in the patent filing actually tell us quite a bit about what Microsoft is planning.Last month, a leaked 56-page document detailed the price and features of Microsoft’s next console . The document was supposedly from 2010 and illustrated the company’s goals for a new Xbox, including the technology it was seeking to include. While Microsoft never openly admitted that the document was authentic, law firm Covington & Burling (which has represented Microsoft in the past) quickly had the document removed from various sites that were hosting it, referring to it as an “interactive entertainment business roadmap.” This led many to speculate that the document was indeed Microsoft’s full plan for its next console.That brings us to today. This new patent contains many of the same ideas the leaked document proposed -- most notably, a Kinect-like system described in the patent could sense the depth of a room. The patent specifically states that a “camera component” (likely Kinect) could “include a depth camera that may capture a depth image of a scene” and use infared light “to determine a physical distance from the capture device to a particular location on the targets or objects in the scene.” In simpler terms, the camera can tell how far away objects are, allowing it to understand its distance from a wall, coffee table or any other barrier that can affect play.This echoes the “better 3D play space recognition” described in the leaked document, which envisioned a Kinect sensor that “sees your living room better than ever which means there’s no need to re-arrange furniture.” The document also described a “better HD RGB camera” and “dedicated hardware processing,” echoed by a section in the patent that states “the capture device may further include a processor that may be in communication with the image camera component,” later referred to as a “specialized processor.”Beyond Kinect, the patent also describes “shared computing resources” that include an additional CPU for running multimedia applications. The patent then defines the term, noting that "A computing resource may be hardware, firmware, software, or a combination of two or more of these," later referring specifically to "multimedia consoles like Xbox, Xbox 360, Kinect, Sony Playstation 3, or Nintendo Wii."In practice, a separate CPU dedicated to multimedia apps could mean running an app like Netflix while you have a full game paused, or having multiple TV streams running simultaneously. Again, this is a concept envisioned in the leaked document, referred to as “new entertainment experiences with multiple TV streams incorporated into a single game environment.” As the document described, “it’s easy to create and mix gaming and video for completely new and innovative experiences that break down the walls between TV, movies and gaming. Watch and play a match of Tiger at St. Andrews and see his shots inserted in real time in your game experiences.”Multiple CPUs could also turn the console into a media server. The new patent describes computing resources “partitioned into a platform partition and an application partition, each including its own central processing unit (CPU).” The leaked document described a feature that would allow players to “record TV in the background and serve up to any device in the household. Stream your personal videos, music, photos and more and play them back from any device.” While this isn’t specifically spelled out in the new patent, it’s certainly a practical application of multiple CPUs.One feature heavily described in the leaked document that’s absent from the patent is cloud streaming. The document described “all your entertainment served up from the cloud” and envisioned a download system that meant players would “never need to upgrade hardware again.” The document also envisioned a media experience that let players “start watching on one screen, pause and pick up on another, pause again and return to [the] primary screen” -- an experience easily made possible by the Smartglass tech Microsoft announced at E3 It’s too soon to know much more about the next Xbox, but we’re beginning to have a clearer picture of what Microsoft is envisioning: the true synthesis of consoles with entertainment devices. If Microsoft gets its way, the next Xbox will not only play games, but will also be your DVR, multimedia center and cable box. Microsoft has still never publicly acknowledged the next Xbox, but we know that it's probably codenamed Durango (or maybe Xbox 8 ) and may even already be in the manufacturing stage . Expect official information to start emerging in the coming months, as developers tell us that the next generation will begin in 2013 Until then, take a look at everything we know about the next generation Xbox in our Xbox 720 wiki guide

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN