Phone facial recognition applications, and pros and cons

[tangey]

I couldn't find a thread that I thought was relevant, so I'm starting this one.

Although not mentioned at the launch, one assumes a natural progression would be that when the face is recognised, the mic is turned on for a few seconds and siri listens for commands, perhaps without announcing itself onscreen. Screen/button interaction would kill the mic. This would allow siri to have full functionality of the phone, whereas at the moment voice doesn't provide full authentication i.e. you can't look at your contacts etc without unlocking the phone via FP or whatever.

In fact given that the phone knows it's you, they might be able to do away with the "hey siri". Accidentally picking up a conversation whilst looking at the phone would have to be considered.

I don't have access to Android phones, so maybe there are phones out there (samungs ?) that do this already ?

Also, I am still to be convinced that facial is a better every day authentication experience for users than fingerpint. I can unlock my phone and use it whilst it is sittingl parallel to me on my corner desk. This won't be possible with facial, as my face is not within view of the camera.

There is probably some other issues around law enforcement, it'll now be "LOOK AT YOUR PHONE", or whatever. Not that it annoys me, but it might annoy some

 

[Grall]

There is probably some other issues around law enforcement, it'll now be "LOOK AT YOUR PHONE", or whatever.

It won't even be that, a cop or whatever could just suddenly present/show the phone to its owner, chances are your eyes will instinctively jump to it to see what it is and you're involuntarily unlocking it. Very insecure. I'm not whelmed by this feature at all. Anything that makes you unlock something as complex as a smartphone (or worse, pay for something for that matter) just by looking it is pretty shit IMO. Not happy that Apple went this route, they should have kept the fingerprint reader, put it in the apple logo on the back if under the screen won't work.

 

[zed]

If it works as good as apple claims, 20x more secure than a fingerprint reader, then thats a positive, but that hasn't been verified. (also it didnt work one time when they demoed it on stage so who knows how reliable it is)

Pro's: Possibly more secure
Cons: Far slower than a fingerprint reader

Based on ppl reaching into their pockets and unlocking their phones ~20x a day, with the extra delay that this facial recognition involves, looks like they made the wrong choice.

Yes what Grall suggests is the right method, they should of included a fingerprint reader on the back as well, (speaking as someone who's used fingerprint readers both on the back and also the front button, the back is the far superior method anyways, perhaps part of the reason apple didnt want to include it on the back is cause thats admitting they made a mistake by using the inferior front button method?)

 

[Mize]

It's stupid. Jobs would have condemned boatloads of engineers to years of therapy to get the through-screen ultrasonic fingerprint reader working. Once it works facial recognition goes bye bye.

 

[milk]

Its definetly a hell of an overengineered feature. They added a damn dot projector and an infrared cam there for that? the space they saved on a potential fingerprint scanner was negated by the huge bar at the top thar ocupies more than half of the screen's header area. The "whole phone is just screen" becomes almost a gimmick because of that. Very innelegant design in my opinion.

 

[Grall]

(also it didnt work one time when they demoed it on stage so who knows how reliable it is)

It worked as intended... The phone hadn't been unlocked after being restarted (noobie mistake on their behalf), if he'd keyed in the keycode the first time the phone prompted him it would have unlocked with his face the second time he tried. Lol. Apple presentations hardly ever fuck up, this is like the 2nd time ever I've seen a glitch like that happen on stage and it wasn't actually a genuine glitch; just the presenter tripping over their own clunky security features. Well, as they say... First impressions last! Hopefully we'll again see a fingerprint reader on iphone XI...

It's stupid. Jobs would have condemned boatloads of engineers to years of therapy to get the through-screen ultrasonic fingerprint reader working.

Indeed he would have! Heads would have rolled and grown men would have cried until the feature was absolutely perfect.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Face unlock is a daft idea if you ask me. Most of the time I'm not looking at my screen when unlocking.

It might be 20x more secure than a finger print scanner but is that really relevant? Lock screens are mostly there to protect your phone when it gets stolen, you lose it or leave it on your desk at work or whatever. So it's meant to prevent access when you are not there. A fingerprint scanner works fine for that.

I know fingerprints can be faked but anybody going through such lengths probably want have problems getting you to look into the camera to unlock either.

If it's about security use a pattern or pin, that cannot be faked or easily guessed (as long as you pick a decent pattern or pin of course) so nobody is going to unlock your phone unless you give the pattern/code.

With a face or finger unlock anybody that really wants to is going to get access quite easy. Won't be difficult for criminals or the law to make you put your finger on a scanner or have you look into a camera.

Long story short: want absolute security? Use a pattern or pin.

Want security that works good enough and is convenient? Finger print scanner.

Want something that is potentially more secure but not really that secure and a pita to use? Facial recognition.

My OnePlus 3 is still plenty fast, hopefully next year or the year after we got scanners under the screen.

Btw scanners on the back of a phone are a design fail imo. Most of the time I want to unlock without having to pick up my phone.

If there is no space on the front then why not put it on the side as Sony did with some phones?

Ow and off topic but has to be said: no 3.5mm jack should be considered a crime.

 

[Pressure]

Craig handled that like a boss. 5 seconds later he was on the backup phone.

The official response to the incident was that it were handled by a lot of people during setup of the demo, trying to unlock every time it was moved by staff and resulting in requiring the mandatory password.

 

[zed]

Its definetly a hell of an overengineered feature. They added a damn dot projector and an infrared cam there for that? the space they saved on a potential fingerprint scanner was negated by the huge bar at the top thar ocupies more than half of the screen's header area. The "whole phone is just screen" becomes almost a gimmick because of that. Very innelegant design in my opinion.

I think it would look better if instead of sticking all the sensors on the top in the middle they instead split them up into two lots, half on the left and half on the right.
Reason, the screen looks crap split up into two, plus its less functional than a single screen

 

[Gubbi]

Windows Hello has been around for over two years and is exactly the same as the face-unlock feature in the iPhone X. I haven't seen any complaints about Hello, quite the contrary (any Surface 4/Book owners want to comment?).

If you're paranoid about security, it can be disabled.

Cheers

 

[Grall]

Windows Hello has been around for over two years and is exactly the same as the face-unlock feature in the iPhone X.

Surface products have IR illuminator/camera and dot projector? If not, then it is not exactly the same...

 

[Gubbi]

Surface products have IR illuminator/camera and dot projector? If not, then it is not exactly the same...

It's exactly the same, they use Intel RealSense. Basically the same tech as the first Kinect.

Cheers

 

[Grall]

It's exactly the same, they use Intel RealSense. Basically the same tech as the first Kinect.

Well, do surface products have a machine learning/AI co-processor then? If not then it's only almost entirely the same, but not exactly the same...

 

[Gubbi]

Well, do surface products have a machine learning/AI co-processor then?

They have a "Vision Processor" with lots and lots and lots of gigabollocks for the depth generation, then you use your Central Processing Unit, a.k.a. the Brain of the computer, for all the smart bits.

Cheers

 

[Picao84]

I would like to know what they base the "20x more secure" figure on? Is it possible for a fingerprint scanner to be fooled? Is this about some science where people have much less probability to find a face doppelganger than someone who has similar finger signatures? Is it a complete random number fabricated by their marketing team because it sounds good?

 

[Grall]

Basically, many peoples' fingerprints are seemingly similar enough that they look identical to a relatively low-res capacitive touch sensor (the one apple uses allegedly is 256 points squared, but I don't know how correct that figure is.)

 

[wco81]

I ordered iPhone 8 because I try to use Apple Pay whenever possible and it appears Touch ID is quicker and more reliable for that purpose.

Someone asked Craig Federighi by email about forced unlock of Touch ID and he said there are side button presses to disable or just shut your eyes if someone tries to hold phone up to face.

 

[zed]

Basically, many peoples' fingerprints are seemingly similar enough that they look identical to a relatively low-res capacitive touch sensor (the one apple uses allegedly is 256 points squared, but I don't know how correct that figure is.)

thats why I go with this method
http://www.mackungfu.org/how-to-use-your-penis-to-unlock-your-iphone-or-ipad

 

[Grall]

Not sure I dare click that link...

I've read about people using their nipples, but this... I suppose it is a sign I should stop misunderestimating the internet.

 

[BRiT]

Not sure I dare click that link...

I've read about people using their nipples, but this... I suppose it is a sign I should stop misunderestimating the internet.

Not worth clicking on because it uses ad-blocker blocker, so you wont be able to browse to it anyways.