Speculation is rising that LG’s forthcoming G5 smartphone is going to feature iris scanning user authentication. Reports coming out of South Korea indicate that the technology is being custom-developed by Korea-based biometrics developer Irience.
The iris scanning system is reportedly in an advanced stage of development and is expected to be ready within a few months. Right now its scanning range is said to be around 12 inches, but the development team is aiming to extend that to 20.
LG’s decision to implement iris scanning is seen as an effort to differentiate its coming mobile device from others on the market that have embraced other biometric modalities, most notably fingerprint scanning, which was pioneered by Apple in its Touch ID system and has now also been embraced by Samsung for its new Android M operating system. Other companies are exploring different modalities, too: Alibaba’s new mPayment platform, Alipay, will reportedly use facial recognition for user authentication in a system called ‘Smile to Pay’.
The advantage of both facial recognition and iris scanning is that they theoretically require even less effort on the part of the user than fingerprint authentication, but given that many consumers are now getting used to fingerprint scanning, it remains to be seen how keen they’ll be to use an alternative modality.
Source: International Business Times
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