Report Claims iPhone 8’s Facial Recognition Will Work In ‘Millionths Of A Second’

A new reports is claiming that the facial recognition system on Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8 will be able to work in “millionths of a second.”

According to 9to5Mac, the report from the Korea Herald says that the “new facial recognition scanner with 3-D sensors can deeply sense a user’s face in the millionths of a second.”

While no source is given, the information comes from a Korean publication, and Samsung is making the OLED displays, so it’s assumed to be an accurate report. It’s not believed that Samsung is making the face recognition system for the iPhone 8.

There have been several reports that Apple is abandoning TouchID in the new iPhone, replacing it with face recognition for both unlock and Apple Pay authorization. Although there has been concern about the convenience in authorizing Apple Pay transactions, where the phone is usually held out to the payment terminal at an oblique angle, the system is said to allow face identification even when held flat.

In addition, it’s expected that the system will use infrared, so that it works in the dark and in low light. The Wall Street Journal reports that “depth-sensing technology, generally called ‘structured light,’ sprays thousands of tiny infrared dots across a person’s face or any other target. By reading distortions in this field of dots, the camera gathers superaccurate depth information. Since the phone’s camera can see infrared but humans can’t, such a system could allow the phone to unlock in complete darkness.”

The iPhone 8 is reportedly entering mass production in September and launch on the same day as the new iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus smartphones. In the meantime, Qualcomm claims that its own technology will allow future Android phones to match or beat the facial-recognition capabilities of the iPhone 8.