2019 is rapidly coming to a close, but the past week in mobile identity has brought some big new developments, with smartphone biometrics and national ID being particularly hot topics in the latest Mobile ID World roundup of our top stories.

With respect to smartphone tech, readers proved highly interested the news that Samsung’s iris-scanning Galaxy S9 and Note9 smartphones now support Google’s Biometric API:

Samsung Adds Support for Google’s Biometric API to Galaxy S9 and Note9 Iris Scanners

Readers were also unsurprisingly interested in Apple patent news this week. This latest bit of intellectual property concerns an in-display fingerprint scanning system, further stoking the speculation that Apple may be planning to bring back Touch ID in a future iPhone:

Apple Awarded Patent for In-Display Touch ID

Sticking to the world of consumer tech, Mobile ID World readers also proved interested in Baidu’s new smart home speaker. Called the Xiaodu Smart Display X8, the device supports far-field voice interaction, gesture recognition, and biometric facial recognition, among other features:

Baidu Emphasizes Children’s Mode in New Xiaodu X8 Smart Speaker

And in the world of digital ID, one of the most popular articles of the past week concerned Mastercard’s plans to trial a new digital identity service in Australia. The system is designed to replace physical IDs, with a mobile device being the basis of users’ personal information:

Mastercard Launches Digital ID Pilot Program in Australia

Meanwhile, Yubico announced that its YubiKey security keys are now being used in multiple national identity projects in Europe, thanks in part to their compliance with the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services (eIDAS) regulation:

Yubico Promotes eIDAS Standards with National eID Program in Faroe Islands

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Stay posted to Mobile ID World next week as we continue to bring you the latest news and interviews from the exciting world of digital identity. To see the hottest stories of the week in biometrics, visit our sibling site FindBiometrics.