The password may become a thing of the past—as well as evolving recommendations on how to write a good one and reports about how humans continue to write bad ones. According to Christopher Mims in The Wall Street Journal, “Forget fiddling with passwords or even fingerprints, forget multiple layers of sign-in, forget credit cards, and, eventually, even physical keys to our homes and cars. A handful of laptops and mobile devices can now read facial features, and the technique is about to get a boost from specialized hardware small enough to fit into our phones.”
One example of the new technology, he writes, is the Qualcomm Spectra imaging system, whose second-generation implementation Qualcomm describes as employing “…machine-learning accelerated computer vision for advanced use cases like face detection and improved bokeh photography.” Says Qualcomm of the second generation, “It features a completely new architecture that is engineered to increase image quality and speed, but more importantly, it’s designed for depth sensing in high-resolution and high accuracy—at very low-power.”
“Meanwhile,” writes Mims, “when firmware for Apple Inc.’s forthcoming HomePod speaker leaked online, developers spotted clues suggesting that an upcoming iPhone might have similar depth perception and facial recognition.”
Mims notes that that such facial-recognition technology differs from that built into security cameras. “It doesn’t need to spot you in a crowd,” he writes. “It just needs to distinguish one face—yours—and it can do that very well, since you’re not some shadowy figure captured in bad light.”
Further, he writes, an IR-based depth-sensing technology generally called “structured light” can gather “superaccurate depth information” and could unlock a phone in complete darkness. Mims adds, “Qualcomm insists that depth perception gives the added bonus of ‘live-ness detection.’ As a result, a 3-D printed mask wouldn’t be able to fool the system, though the company admits identical twins might.”
He notes that Apple hasn’t announced any use of the technology. Qualcomm, however, has said it will make its Spectra processor available for Android phones.
Cautions Mims, “All biometrics have their trade-offs….”
