Sony Promises Better Face Identification Through Depth-Sensing Lasers (theverge.com) 46
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).
Re: On what hand? (Score:1)
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Beau not working, again?
Don't bite the other hand that feeds.
This sounds dangerous - DO NOT WANT (Score:2, Interesting)
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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.
Also best not to allow the phone to sense light and construct a 2D image that a good computer program could convert into 3D provided enough light from different angles. I hear electric tape is pretty good for preventing light from coming or going out, tin foil works pretty well too and has other benefits to blocking incoming EM signals that can be used to determine the location or send out sound picked up by said phone.
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There are many things that are perfectly safe which when we find out what is happening sounds dangerous. There are also a lot of things that we think are as safe is actually quite dangerous.
The most risky thing I tend to do every day is my daily commute. Over the past 10 years with this particular commute, I have gotten into one accident which no one was hurt except for my car and my bank wallet. (a Prius will take more damage then a Hummer does on impact)
However every day, I put myself in a ton of metal,
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There are many things that are perfectly safe which when we find out what is happening sounds dangerous. There are also a lot of things that we think are as safe is actually quite dangerous.
Let me tell you all about this scary as hell common chemical called DHMO. Deadly in every form it is, and completely unregulated, they put in everything from medicine to toilet cleaner!
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This has the potential to be dangerous, albeit not lethal with the typical power levels found in a modern phone.
How? These aren't fucking laser guns, not even laser pointers. Exactly what danger do you think they pose?
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You say this now, but what happens when some evil hacker turns one of these up to say 5MW?
Actually that would be kind of cool if it was possible.
time resolution (Score:2)
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.
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Man, you can tell the slashdot crowd is aging. Next people will be complaining that robots are going to break in an take their medication.
Anyone that is going to hack your phone to get the layout of your house will have the capability to know if you are there or not. If they intend you harm, it would be easier just to catch you as you leave or enter.
You are being a chicken little.
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Unlike other forms of security. Biometrics requires a targeted attack, vs a generalized attack.
So overall you are probably more protected because you are really not that special enough to require someone to go into extra means to copy your bio-metrics for you to hack in.
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.
It is annoying that I need to be looking directly at the phone for it to respond. However the fingerprint reader
Depends on use case (Score:2)
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.
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I switched off "Require Attention for Face ID" in Settings.
As you say; my main threat is the average meth head stealing my phone and FaceId will prevent them and any downstream buyer from looking at my data.
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Second, if your biometrics are subject to a targeted attack, that is the biometric becomes known beyond the level of detail the sensor uses, you are 100% locked out of using that biometric until the state of the art advances to use more data than yo
Caution Labels (Score:1)
I imagine the caution label on this will be something like...
Caution, do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Great idea! (Score:4, Funny)
Do not look at phone with remaining eye.
Terrible idea (Score:2)
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Here's a better idea: Let's not shoot lasers at people's faces.
This is about as dangerous as me shooting my tv remote at your face.
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It's not hard to type ThisIsMySuperSpecialSecretPasswordThatNobodyWillEverSee12345, but it does take a long time.
Oh Slashdot, how far you've fallen (Score:2)
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.
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Slashdot's comments section fell a decade ago.
I can't wait for the dirt cheap LIDAR modules (Score:3)
used to do this hit the hobby market. Time to start planning some projects...
Sounds really good! (Score:2)
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.
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Purely curious, but what about FaceID do you find to be vastly superior? Many people I have spoken to seem to be somewhat indifferent about it (in comparison to TouchID) and usually I am told about how each has its pros and cons. I'm still using a phone with a thumbprint reader and I am content with it; never felt like it was so inconvenient that I needed facial recognition.
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Yeah GP was a bit too hyperbolic and I've been happy with either method. It's not that TouchId is "so inconvenient that I needed facial recognition" - that's hyperbole too.
So TouchId was never anywhere near inconvenient, it's great but for me FaceId *is* an improvement and it's even more seamless an fails even less often.
That's me though; for some it's the other way around and others need to disable "attention detection" for it to work well.
Well I should say: The fingerprint reader on my Samsung GS6 was ter
What I like about FaceID is not having to act (Score:2)
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
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Those are some great insights, thanks!
Re: Sounds really good! (Score:1)
Won't work (Score:2)
My twin nieces will still defeat your facial recognition software. Every time.
Hmm... like the old sign in the physics lab said: (Score:2)
"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.)