Samsung eyeballing iris scanners: Galaxy Iris and Galaxy Eyeprint trademarked in U.S. and Korea

What’s in a name? A lot about eyeballs if you’re Samsung right now. Now, trademarked names don’t always mean much, just as Samsung patents for folding smartphones never seem to come about, but it’s pretty clear that Samsung is looking at putting iris scanners in an upcoming Galaxy device in the U.S. and South Korea (there’s already an iris-equipped Galaxy tablet in India).

Samsung has already trademarked the names Galaxy Iris and Galaxy Eyeprint (which is simply awful, by the way) in the EU, but has now done the same for both Korea and the United States. In India, the Galaxy Iris Tab is already out, so it looks like the iris-equipped future has officially arrived.

While the Indian tablet version is largely targeted at corporate and governmental data-collecting types, a wider push into North America, the EU and South Korea seems to indicate a more mainstream consumer-level push. Samsung’s plans for the trademarks are as yet unknown, but we may well see an iris scanner included in the Galaxy Note 6 or Galaxy S8.

Iris scanning has always been the holy grail of biometric authentication, but it has remained elusive for being too expensive and a little too slow to keep everyday smartphone owners happy. Fingerprint scanners have become the de facto standard for biometric security, but if Samsung can push out a reliable and most important of all, speedy, iris scanner, fingerprint scanners may soon find themselves in the discount bin of smartphone security.

What do you think about iris scanning as opposed to fingerprints? Can Samsung Samsung pull it off?