Experts of the company Apple is testing a new feature of the iPhone 8, which includes the recognition of users ‘ faces. For the first time on this technology the company began working three years ago.
On the eve of the presentation of the iPhone 8, the network appears more and more rumors about the technology of fingerprint recognition — or rather, where the company is going to place it. According to close to Apple sources, the new generation of smartphone, probably, quite lose this function, and it will be replaced by the technology of facial recognition.
The iPhone 8 will be implemented a function, which seems at first glance quite interesting – controlling access to a device using the technology of face recognition. It is expected to substitute the technology of fingerprint recognition.
Bureau of patents and trademarks United States on Thursday published an Apple patent for biometric technology to control access to the portable device using the camera. The patent, which is dated 2013, called “Built-in authentication system for an electronic device”.
According to the description of the system, it allows you to identify the person’s face or the activation of an individual profile. In addition, the gadgets will be able to determine the presence of a person and depending on whether there’s anyone around or not, enable or disable the display. Thanks to this feature, iPhone 8 can automatically restrict access to your smartphone or tablet, depending on who is in front of the camera of the gadget.
From the description it follows that the system is in low power mode, as long as the sensors do not “see” the face, and then activated technology for human recognition.
The principle of work is based on the comparison of previously obtained image stored in the memory device, with the image coming from the camera. Recognition function analyzes the degree of similarity of the most characteristic features of the face such as eyes and mouth contours. The result of the comparison is used to select a user profile, and grant or restrict access to the device.
The patent also describes several variants of this technology. For example, tracking how far the user is from the device, it may go into “sleep mode” to save battery power.
According to media reports, Apple developers are currently testing a new feature on the iPhone 8 prototype, which will be presented in September. It is expected that the smartphone will be the 3D camera, through which the device owner can log in to your account, verify payments and to launch applications. The technology also will be able to scan the user’s face within a few hundred milliseconds and unlock the phone, even if the owner had not got his hands on it (for example, left lying on the table).
According to rumors, Apple has not decided where to place the Touch ID in the new iPhone, and the technology of fingerprint recognition in the OLED displays are still under development.
Recently a well-known insider Ming-Chi of KGI confirmed that the new iPhone will not support fingerprint recognition and will turn to other methods for user authentication.
