Slashdot Mirror
New iPhone To Have Tap to Wake, Attention Detection, and Virtual Home Button, Says Report (theverge.com)
HomePod's firmware has revealed several new features coming to the upcoming iPhone, such as a tap to wake function, facial expression and attention detection, and virtual home button. "Apple accidentally released the firmware over the weekend resulting in a frenzy of analysis about previously unknown features," reports The Verge. From the report: Developers including Steve Troughton-Smith and Guilherme Rambo have been tweeting their findings, notably the discovery of the new iPhone's bezel-less screen design. They've also concluded that the resolution for the iPhone 8 could be as much of a visual leap forward from current-generation iPhones as the iPhone 4's Retina display was from the original iPhone. Apple is using codenames for both its face recognition feature and the bezel-less phone, called "Pearl ID" and "D22" respectively. A potential "attention detection" feature is also mentioned in the code, with some speculating that may mean the phone will remain silent for notifications if it knows you're looking at the screen already. Facial references such as "mouthstretch," "mouthsmile," and "mouthdimple" were also found, which are most likely a nod to Apple's rumored facial recognition feature that can even detect faces in the dark using infrared. A tap to wake feature has also been discovered, and should be similar to the Windows Phone function that allows users to double-tap the screen to wake the phone.
With android all you need is a photograph of the persons face to unlock.
Not so secure, eh?
How much you want to bet Apple gets it right, again?
I don't think it will be as simple to crack this as it was to crack that Android feature. Apple is reportedly adding a 3D scanner which is a key component when doing hard-to-crack facial recognition and which would defeat something as simple as snapping a photo of your mark with your iPad (you being an evil Apple user of course) and then using it to unlock his Android phone. So let's just wait and see how Apple does with this. They seem to have done OK with their fingerprint scanner, at least I have not seen any reports of mobile phone thieves lifting people's fingerprints off their stolen iPhones on an industrial scale and then spending a few hours making latex fingerprint casts and using them to unlock iPhones. In the mean time, if it really pans out that Apple is adding a 3D scanner to the iPhone I can't wait to see what other things that scanner can do. If it can scan a face it should be able to scan objects which opens up interesting possibilities for 3D printing. At the very least, if this feature turns out to be reasonably hard to crack it would make for a quick and easy to use one half of a very effective two factor login procedure.