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Face ID Deemed Too Costly To Copy, Android Makers Target In-Display Fingerprint Sensors Instead (9to5mac.com)
"Android phone makers are 'rushing' to implement fingerprint sensors under the display for upcoming handsets," reports 9to5Mac, citing a new report from Digitimes. "Android manufacturers have decided that recreating the 3D facial recognition used by iPhone X is simply too costly to include, and are instead focusing on implementing Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint scanners." From the report: The report says that including an Infrared depth-sensing facial recognition system like the iPhone X is simply too expensive for Android smartphones to offer, which cannot command the same price premiums as Apple's iPhones. This is a combination of hardware and software development costs. Digitimes claims the cost of the TrueDepth 3D sensors in iPhone X peaked at $60 per unit, an incredibly high proportion of the overall phone cost if accurate. Android makers are also worried about possible patent infringement from adopting Infrared dot projector systems. Instead, they have turned to in-display fingerprint sensors as their next-generation of device authentication. This depends on using Qualcomm technology for ultrasonic-based fingerprint scanners, which can sit below the cover glass and work even if fingers are wet or greasy.
FaceID used infra-red depth-sensing, which makes it a lot more accurate and harder to fool.
Microsoft laptops already have FaceID type authentication
Sigh. Face recognition from images is utterly not the same thing as FaceID which uses a 3D mapping of the face from a variety of sensors.
Image Facial Recognition is about as secure as a TSA approved padlock.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't want passive authentication. I want active.
Why? FaceID is active when needed (like for conformation of a purchase). But the rest to the time, it works instantly when it knows you are the one looking at the phone.
And I don't want Apple or Google having access to biometric info that I can't change.
Right there with you! Luckily FaceID data is only held on the device (in the Secure Enclave where it remains encrypted) and does not leave it. Apple does not get any biometric data from you.
I'll keep my long passcode, thanks very much
That is more secure than any biometric system, just a lot more annoying. It means you turn off other things like notification text blocking or have larger purchase unlock timeframes because you don't want to have to enter passcodes as often...
And even then, I'm not sure passcodes are realistically more secure.
I mean, realistically how much are you willing to suffer - either physically or legally - before you unlock your phone by whatever means you have? The realistic reason why you have a passcode is so that someone can't unlock your phone you leave on a table by accident, or lose in a cab. In that case FaceID works every bit as well as a long passcode, and is far more convenient the 99.999999999% of the time you have not left your phone in a cab.
Fingerprint scanners are pretty good but with a 1 in 50k chance that someone else's fingerprint will unlock your phone is it more possible some random person might unlock it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Amazingly, they are copying the notch , just not the faceID.
Except it is. FaceID doesn't use the camera like the HTC. It fact, it doesn't even need visible light to function. It projects dots on your face using infrared and an infrared camera (separate from the photo/video camera) reads the map of your face.
I would guess that GP wants to be the one to activate the authentication process, and for it to not happen automatically at any moment "randomly".
It's not at all random. It's when you are looking at the screen.
Even then for some actions (like payments) it still prompts for confirmation, so it's not always completely automatic - just when that makes sense, like unlocking the phone (unlocking does not go to the home screen).
If you are in some app asking for a password the system can auto-fill, it does so - but does not submit it for you. Again, it's automatic in ways that are handy, but not ways that take some action you might not have wanted.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley