China-based smartphone maker Nubia has announced a new smartphone that will feature eye-based biometric authentication.
Called the Nubia Z9 Mini Elite, the mobile device uses eye vein recognition for user identification. The technology appears to be based on the EyeVerify-developed authentication systems used in the Grand S3 smartphone developed by ZTE, Nubia’s former parent company. Eyeprint authentication is also featured on the ZTE Axon handset.
EyeVerify had a strong showing at the recent Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas, and there is growing interest in the smartphone world for eye-based authentication generally, with devices like Microsoft’s newly announced Lumia 950 smartphones employing infrared iris scanning. Nubia’s new smartphone could help to introduce eye-based smartphone biometrics to lower parts of the price spectrum. While it isn’t yet clear how much the Nubia Z9 Mini Elite will cost, there are indications that it will be competitively priced, and with Nubia promising a thousand-yuan (approx. $158) discount on a limited number of initial sales.
Source: China Daily
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