iOS 11 hints at Touch ID on the screen?

Much has been said about the possibility of the iPhone 8 coming with the Touch ID sensor integrated into the screen (or beneath it), and looking at the latest iOS 11 ... things seem to be definitely going in that direction.

Fingerprints less secure than PIN in the court of law?

Using our fingers to unlock our smartphones may be faster, but it can also be less secure should you want to keep away your data from law enforcement.

NEC wants to replace fingerprints with earphones

Our fingerprints, faces, and even our eyes, are becoming an increasingly popular way to authenticate our access to devices and places, but NEC is working on a different biometric method that relies on earphones.

Inkjet printed fingerprints can fool smartphones' sensors

Fingerprint sensors are becoming increasingly common in smartphones, but there are those that want to remind us that they may not be as secure as people may think, showing that a simple inkjet printer may be enough to bypass such protection.

Nexus 6 doesn't have a fingerprint sensor because of Apple

If you find odd that the latest Nexus 6 reference smartphone doesn't have a fingerprint sensor, you'll probably like to know that it was intended to have one... but it couldn't because of Apple.

Galaxy S5 fingerprint sensor is also fooled by fake latex prints

When Apple unveiled their TouchID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5S, soon it was criticized because it could be fooled by fake latex fingerprints. Now, it's Samsung's latest Galaxy S5 that's also put to the test... and also fails.

Apple wasn't the first company to put a fingerprint reader on a smartphone, but it was the first (I think) to use one that can read your fingerprint without a swiping motion. The one in the Galaxy S5 is also placed in the "home button" but it requires to do the swipe motion. Just like it happened with the iPhone, the process involved in creating a fake fingerprint is more troublesome than most people would be willing to endure - but it's a possibility nonetheless.

In Samsung's case, the risk is compounded by the fact that the system never requires you to enter an additional pin/passcode, like it happens in iOS after a reboot. And because the sensor can be used by 3rd party apps, a fake fingerprint can give you access to apps like PayPal.

It's a "no-win" scenario: in iOS people complain TouchID isn't usable by 3rd party apps; in the Galaxy S5 they complain because it is. Guess we need to accept that fingerprints are just another verification method, that can fail, but is still usable for routine medium-security validation. If you add a second validation layer for truly sensitive things, I think it's more than fine for everyday use.

Fingerprint Scanning LCD

If you were like me, you couldn't help but chuckle whenever you watched a sci-fi movie where, at some point, someone would press their fingers/palm against an LCD to scan their fingerprints.

Well, once again we're shown that fiction does push science further and faster - and what's fiction eventually ends up becoming reality.

AU Optronics has just annouced an LCD with an integrated light sensor and... as you'd expect from the title:  a fingerprint scanner.

So, next time we watch one of those science-fiction movies... this part won't be able to be considered "fiction" anymore.

via [gizmodo]