By Now that front-facing cameras are all the rage, there is a bit more than just video conferencing that they can be useful for. A promising and interesting use of the now common hardware is biometric authentication, through eye and/or facial scanning as a mean to unlock a device or private files stored on the device. Blue Planet Apps has been working away on their own BioLock, and from the latest demo video they have offered up, it is coming along quite nicely.
So just what sort of uses could we expect? Here is what Blue Planet has to say about it (as well as talk for both consumer and enterprise versions):
“As for BioLock, it has many possibilities. We have ideas for a consumer and enterprise model, the consumer model will replace the lock screen, allow users to lock as much of the phone as possible, contacts, dialer, phone numbers, apps, etc…
The enterprise model is a whole nother beast, it connects to Microsoft Azure cloud, and does the authentication off the device, so the scan is taken, sent to the cloud, authenticated and sent back. It is currently designed to use a 1024bit Polymorphic Cipher which, should by some miracle someone intercepts the encrypted hash, is uncrackable. This is designed to be adapted into the end users applications, for example, a Banking app, or government email app that can encrypt messages before sending them (wikileaks would never have happened). Healthcare, etc… the list goes on and on.
We have some other ideas for this technology, as off shoots of BioLock, using the FFC (Front Facing camera) to scan a users face while playing a game and send targeted marketing, or for social media communication during gaming.
The end result is that with our smartphones and tablets rapidly replacing our desktops and laptops, most of our future financial and other secure transactions will be over mobile/wireless networks and will need much more robust security. Nothing is more secure or reliable than YOU. Iris being the MOST accurate, then Face. We are also going to add Voice verification in the consumer model of BioLock and users will have the option to choose one or a combination of options to lock down their device.
Blue Planet Apps is currently working very closely with Samsung to develop BioLock on Samsung devices, with the possible result being that Samsung will deploy it on all its devices as part of the AndroidOS. We have also been talking to Nokia for deployment of BioLock on the upcoming Meego platform and other platforms as well.”
No word on when exactly this sort of tech will come to the general public other than the above mention of Samsung and Nokia devices shipping with BioLock in the future, but we are positively giddy about the day we can play Mission: Impossible and go from lock screen to homescreen just by eyeing up that front-facing lens.
[via AndroidGuys]
They have been working this for over a year.
I am hopeful we can see this implentation soon, but I think they are working the corporate angle seeking someone, Google, to buy their software or at least license it.
first
Probably never gonna see. These guys are all talk, and speaking of talk when was CrossTalk suppose to be released….oh yeah durring the summer.
Are any of their apps even available to try???
Blue Planet
Building mobile apps for the next gen…that you cant use till next gen.
Umm, wouldn’t this be pretty easy to bypass? Like, just take a picture of the person whose phone it is, then hold the pic up to the camera. Would probably work for iris as well, if it was a high-enough res pic.
Or, they could, you know, pop out your eye (Minority Report).
Who is going to be the first phone company to put a thumb scanner on the back of the phone for unlock?
Okay, I am all for biometric authentication. I use Veriface on my work desktop and I use fingerprint on my home desktop as well as Dell E6500 notebook. The Veriface is awesome and often times has recognized me and logged me in by the time I’m fully seated in my chair! I used to use a program years ago called “Voice Print” or something like that, that did facial recog and it would have me logged in as I was WALKING TO my computer! outstanding!
I also think this application LOOKS great. However, it is WAY too much ‘eye-candy’ to be practical. Why do I have to drag a lock to the action? Waste of motion. Then the authentication took FOREVER. I could have swiped my finger on the 9-circle pattern that comes with my HTC Evo 4G in a fraction of the time.
For this to catch on and be USEFUL and not a GIMMIC, it has to be way faster and way more intuitive.
I suggest you set a ‘default’ mode in the settings. Then when you power on your phone, it automatically is scanning your face immediately without any user intervention. Once a match is made, then BAM! you’re in. Also have various levels for speed vs. security. Even simple face reco algorithms these days are plenty secure for the average user.
I’m extremely excited for this (and other) products to come on the market. It’s about time. I don’t see why a front facing camera is required either. It seems that if it’s done right, ANYONE should be able to use their back camera too. It just has to make a sound to let you know if you passed/failed.
@RebelScum — you’d think so, but no. It’s not as easy as you’d think. I’ve had my co-workers trying to break my Veriface for over a year now. I’ve even posed for photos and they’ve printed a scale image of my head. They’ve tried cutting out the eye holes and mouth and stuff. So far undefeated! :)
Look up “Facial Recognition” on Wikipedia, or “Eigenface” for some more insight.
@ADWheeler — I totally agree. I don’t understand why they haven’t put a fingerprint reader on phones by now. Technology is cheap and pretty straight forward at this point. Maybe integrate them into the camera so you put your finger ON the camera lense? Or into the touch screen somehow? Seems like it should be do-able.
@RebelScum – I agree, seems very easy to bypass.
@ADWheeler Photography
@DAE51D
LG already has the LG GW820 eXpo with a fingerprint scanner and it’s at least a year old! Times…they are a’changin’!
Not good if you have an evil twin…or people with photographs of you.
Too bad we can’t somehow reverse-engineer multitouch capabilities to read a fingerprint with the existing touch screen. THAT would be freakin awesome
Photographs won’t cut it. Even very good, hi res ones. There are some very fundamental differences.
Hi… Nice discussion here. Just to add my comments to the above. Firstly, I would like to see everyone on any phone get the chance to use BioLock, not just one particular brand. Secondly, you can’t use a picture of video to fool any good iris/face recognition, we build in various methods to defeat that, like pupil dilation, lip movements and others. As for the comment about the speed, we are making very good improvements on the speed all the time, there is an early alpha version on YouTube which you will notice is much slower, I hope to release a new demo video showing even more improvements. Also, the reason for the lock dragging is because we are replacing the lock screen on the phone, so we want to offer the choice to the user which type of authentication to choose. We are also currently adding Voice Print ID to the system so we can verify the speaker verbally as an option. When we are done, BioLock will be the most advance biometric application on any smartphone or tablet.
Cheap Twitter plug… @blueplanetapps :)
Thanks,
Jason Braverman
Chief Executive Officer
Blue Planet Apps, Inc.