LG Innotek Announces Below-the-screen fingerprint reader | TechTree.com

LG Innotek Announces Below-the-screen fingerprint reader

No info on when we’ll get to see the new tech

 

Image source: Phandroid.com

The idea behind LG’s new fingerprint reader technology — which is housed in a groove behind the glass of the screen — is primarily better design. There won’t be a button on the face or side of the smartphone, which takes up space and, in some cases, stands out from the nearby elements. There are other advantages, including the fact that the reader becomes waterproof.

To allay concerns about how accurate a device under the glass will be, the new technology, LG says, has a failure rate (granting of access to the wrong person) of 0.0002 percent, Whowired Korea reports.

While LG Innotek hasn’t yet said when the new technology will come into production, this could become big in the future as fingerprint readers in smartphones become more common. An online poll in January suggested that already, at least 60 percent of phones do — but this doesn’t include non-respondents, so the figure could be higher.

As an aside, fingerprint-based identification isn’t foolproof: A team of hackers bypassed Apple’s Touch ID within two days of its release. No-one’s fingers were cut off; the hackers used “lifted fingerprints” — high-def scans of existing fingerprints — to fool the device.

Back to LG’s innovation, I personally think it won’t be as useful as it seems. It does help in terms of phone design, but to use the below-the-glass scanner, you still have to place your finger on a specific part of the phone. What would be really useful is if the entire screen were a fingerprint reader — with, say, an array of scanners under the glass. That way, you could just touch your phone to unlock it, instead of performing a specific action.


TAGS: LG Innotek

 
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