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Sony Promises Better Face Identification Through Depth-Sensing Lasers (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Speaking with Bloomberg last week, Sony's sensor division boss Satoshi Yoshihara said Sony plans to ramp up production of chips to power front and rear 3D cameras in late summer, responding to demand from multiple smartphone manufacturers. Though Yoshihara is geeked about the potential for augmented reality applications, the most intriguing aspect of this new tech would appear to be a better form of face identification than we currently have. The Face ID approach that Apple first brought into use on the iPhone X -- and others like Xiaomi, Huawei, and Vivo have since emulated -- works by projecting out a grid of invisible dots and detecting the user's face by the deformations of that grid in 3D space. Sony's 3D sensor, on the hand, is said to deploy laser pulses, which, much like a bat's echolocation, creates a depth map of its surroundings by measuring how long a pulse takes to bounce back. Sony's sensor chief argues this produces more detailed models of users' faces, plus it apparently works from as far away as five meters (16 feet).
Beau not working, again?
Sony Promises to point lasers at your face!
I do not want my phone emitting laser pulses. This has the potential to be dangerous, albeit not lethal with the typical power levels found in a modern phone. It sounds like it also could be hijacked and used to sense a user's immediate surroundings if it works out to 15 feet. It probably could generate a 3D map of the inside of your house as you walked through it. With this type of information, you quickly lose superiority over a burglar or invader, especially given the superior firepower and element of surprise they are likely to have.
No. No one wants face scan. It's creepy and weird.
I imagine the caution label on this will be something like...
Caution, do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Do not look at phone with remaining eye.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Here's a better idea: Let's not shoot lasers at people's faces.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Are they seriously bragging about LADAR at 5m like some new technology? Back in the early 90's I was mapping vehicles with 1cm accuracy at 20km, limited only by my ability to create ultra-short (at least for back then) laser pulses and the gating of the photomultiplier tube, and I think NASA was doing that kind of work all the way back in the 60's when the ruby laser was invented.
... not for the reasons many mentions here.
Weak lasers can naturally be made safe, there are plenty in different projection systems etc so short, weak laser bursts is not a real safety issue...
However for a few other reasons I think this will be a worse solution than the IR-based approach by Apple (and others):
- Laser dots seems to indicate visible light, otherwise they would probably mention that they are not?
- IR has the advantage of going past clothers/scarfs/helmets/glasses etc which is quite important for robust reliable identification in a practical way, for me this seems to be the part of IR that is the most brilliant and clever by Apple
Having said all of this, we will see how they execute this, maybe there IS a great product behind this, but my bet is that this is mainly a marketing hype and this will turn out to be inferior to the Apple solution...
Call me a luddite, but doesn't shooting lasers directly at one's face from arm's length seem a bit ludicrous? Is a password THAT hard to type?
All the comments so far are some variation on "oh no, shooting LAZORS at someone!"
I've worked with both the pattern projection systems (like kinect) and the TOF imaging chips. The TOF systems are a more elegant solution, but don't seem to be all that superior in practice. Since they use interference they have a window of distances they're sensitive to, with a tradeoff of precision and how deep the window is.
used to do this hit the hobby market. Time to start planning some projects...
FaceID is vastly better than fingerprint detection so I am happy to see Sony offering something to where this can be offered to many other phone makers...
It's only half of the equation though, once you get a detailed depth map you need software to be able to verify it's an authenticated face. Probably Sony will have some kind of reference implementation for that, that while not as good as Apple's will be good enough for most people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have an iPhone with Apples face reader. Compared to the fingerprint reader is is six on one side and half a dozen on the other.
In my experience sometimes FaceID is preferable and sometimes TouchID is preferable depending on the use case. There are a lot of times where having to have the phone looking right at you is rather awkward. Using ApplePay is a good example - for that the fingerprint ID is usually preferable in my experience, especially for things like going through a drive through. I'd say 80-90% of the time I prefer FaceID but that other 10-20% I really prefer TouchID.
To map face conttours one is going to need sub-centimeter resolution. I'd speculate that to actually make this distinguishing -- the point of face recognition, one would need millimeter resolution. SO that would put the time reolution below 30 picoseconds.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
My twin nieces will still defeat your facial recognition software. Every time.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Do not look at the laser light with your remaining eye."
Maybe it's just me but I still wonder about why anyone is putting so much valuable information on their phone that it needs this level of security. If I lose my phone or it's stolen, all the finder/thief is going to get is my contacts' phone numbers, some photos, and music I've copied onto the phone. No need to have laser facial scanning to protect that. (Nope... no online banking and definitely no social networking via my phone.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Purely curious, but what about FaceID do you find to be vastly superior?
Because I don't have to ever think consciously about authenticating, it just happens. As someone else said in the past, the feel of it is like using a phone without a passcode... A few examples:
1) Notifications show up, but text is not revealed until I look at the phone.
2) I really can just Siri to open any app with the phone locked, and it will open up without having to wait for the prompt to unlock.
3) I can just pick up my phone and by the time I'm swiping it up to open it's unlocked and I am in.
4) On an iPad FaceID has an additional feature of meaning the device truly has no orientation, which makes it nicer to use (no fingerprint/home button to seek out to move between apps).
5) It also is way nice if you have touch sensitive gloves, since you don't have to take off the gloves to unlock and use your phone. However, there is a sticking point there - I've not been happy with any touch sensitive gloves I've bought yet. I bought two light pairs of gloves last year, and the touch registration was a bit iffy to start, but after a year has past, this winter I find it does not work at all. If anyone has any suggestions for very good gloves, or particular tech to look for I am all ears (both gloves I had just had a touch registering fabric, but I think there is some more wire mesh looking material I have seen in the past that may hold up better).
6) For older users FaceID is super reliable (as the older you get the more distinctive your face is). TouchID has trouble the older you are - the fingerprint sensors the government uses for global entry cannot even read my mothers fingerprints anymore. TouchID on an iPhone does work for her, but sometimes it's not able to read prints depending on how dry her hands are.
Some people said I was being hyperbolic but I am serious, I would never buy another device without FaceID, for anyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Those lasers are mounted on sharks. It's laser dangerous combined with shark dangerous.
Geez, where's the OH&S team when you need them??