While Galaxy X & Galaxy S9 Take On iPhone X, Samsung Is Working On New Palm Reading Feature [Report]
The Samsung Galaxy X and Galaxy S9 promise plenty of new features that could possibly compete with Apple’s iPhone X but a new security feature under works appears to be stealing the show: palm reading.
Contrary to what immediately comes to mind, this particular “palm reading” technology is not the one fortune-tellers use to tell one’s future. In a report, Tech Radar revealed that the South Korean company is taking biometric security to another level as a newly-discovered patent from the smartphone giant posted in Patent Scope revealed that another part of the human body can be used in to protect the data in our smartphone.
Based on the report, biometric security might soon be able to use the crevices of one’s hand to identify the person using the phone. Like fingerprints, the lines in the middle of one’s hand are unique to an individual, making it a perfect fit for identity authentication.
According to patent, the technology will make use of the phone’s camera to scan the user’s palm. However, Tech Radar revealed that palm reading will not replace existing features like the iPhone X’s facial recognition or the Galaxy S9’s fingerprint technology, but will only serve as an auxiliary security for the device.
More specifically, the idea is for palm reading to provide an option for the user in the form of a password hint instead of using security questions that can easily be guessed or hacked. Once the center of the user’s hand is scanned, the palm reading technology in Samsung’s patent will throw up a couple of characters present in the forgotten password, thereby allowing the user to recall the password initially programmed on the phone.
Get ready for Galaxy Psychic? Samsung patents a palm reader. https://t.co/bLTPhig4mb
— Rami Ahola (@ramiahola) December 4, 2017
Admittedly, the technology is not quite as advanced as many would have hoped considering that Apple’s iPhone X already has facial recognition and other devices including Samsung’s Galaxy S9’s fingerprint scanner.
With that in mind, Tech Radar noted that there is no guarantee that the feature will make its way into a smartphone anytime soon.
Echoing their opinion, the Tech Times agreed that Samsung might be better off improving their facial recognition system to compete with iPhone X than adding the palm reader into their upcoming Galaxy X smartphone. It might even be a better idea to pursue incorporating the fingerprint scanning technology into the screen instead of the back of the phone, as previously planned for the Galaxy S9 per a report from Forbes.
