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Samsung Galaxy S9 said to get upgraded Iris Scanner and Facial Recognition tech
Given how much noise Apple generated with the facial recognition capabilities of its iPhone X, you can expect a whole bunch of other smartphone manufacturers to implement such technology in their upcoming smartphones. Though Samsung beat Apple to the punch on facial recognition in 2017, delivering it on the Galaxy S8 last April, its implementation was quickly forgotten about following reports that it was easily duped by a hi-res photo. According to a recent report, Samsung may be trying to up its game in this regard on its next flagship.
Korean news website ETnews (via The Android Soul), reported on Friday that Samsung is investing in improvements to both its facial recognition and iris scanning technologies for the Galaxy S9. Based on the translation from ETnews, Samsung’s goal is to “increase iris recognition and face recognition speed while maintaining the same basic parts specification and structure as the previous one.”
Further, ETNews quoted an industry observer as saying: “It’s an attempt to show something different from the previous one […] in addition to increasing the speed of simple recognition, there may be new add-ons through software applications.”
Unlike Apple’s version, which uses 3D imagery, the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus and Note 8’s facial recognition maps images in 2D (which is why they can be fooled by a photograph). So, it looks like Samsung is only trying to improve things as far as usability is concerned, rather than security, with the same core components (including the previously used 8 MP camera), quicker operation, and perhaps a new feature or two.
This makes the most sense for the iris scanning tech, which is said to be more secure than Samsung’s facial recognition, but slower. Increasing the speed of something that has already been proven to be not very secure seems like a poor investment of Samsung’s resources though — does anybody even use Samsung’s facial recognition software currently? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.