Saturday, December 31, 2011
Apple might be working on a new feature which would be similar to Google's built-in feature in its Galaxy Nexus smartphone. The future iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Macbook may contain the recognition system as pointed out by PatentlyApple. Details below!
The main objective is to give users the ability to unlock their iDevice through facial recognition. If this system comes, then the device's camera would be able to recognize the user when when the sleep mode is on. Users won't have to press the sleep/wake button as the device's camera would be active while even in sleep mode. No longer will they have to tap the Slide to Unlock button to unlock their devices.
The feature would also allow the settings to be customized which would allow the device of the iOS user to be shared easily among family and friends. It would allow for multiple user logins and different wallpapers and notifications can be set when detecting different faces.
Face biometrics would be ignored by the system. The title of the patent is "Low Threshold Face Recognition", and as pointed out further by PatentlyApple, the techniques are not based on a traditional correlation match but rather on a simple, weighted difference map. The "High information portions" such as mouth, eyes or the nose could be detected by the system and an "orange-distance filter" might also be applied which would detect the "likely presence" of the user and determine variations in skin tone. This would also enable to detect the distance between the device and the user's face including the user's "level of attentiveness."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was experimenting with the facial recognition system in 2010 before the launch of the iPad. The patient discussed in the post was originally filed in 2009.
The main objective is to give users the ability to unlock their iDevice through facial recognition. If this system comes, then the device's camera would be able to recognize the user when when the sleep mode is on. Users won't have to press the sleep/wake button as the device's camera would be active while even in sleep mode. No longer will they have to tap the Slide to Unlock button to unlock their devices.
The feature would also allow the settings to be customized which would allow the device of the iOS user to be shared easily among family and friends. It would allow for multiple user logins and different wallpapers and notifications can be set when detecting different faces.
Face biometrics would be ignored by the system. The title of the patent is "Low Threshold Face Recognition", and as pointed out further by PatentlyApple, the techniques are not based on a traditional correlation match but rather on a simple, weighted difference map. The "High information portions" such as mouth, eyes or the nose could be detected by the system and an "orange-distance filter" might also be applied which would detect the "likely presence" of the user and determine variations in skin tone. This would also enable to detect the distance between the device and the user's face including the user's "level of attentiveness."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was experimenting with the facial recognition system in 2010 before the launch of the iPad. The patient discussed in the post was originally filed in 2009.
