The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was recently launched and one of the handset’s features is its iris scanner. So far fingerprint scanning has been the standard for the past few years, but it looks like Samsung has plans to introduce alternative methods and the iris scanner is one of those ways, and it also looks like it will be making its way to non-flagships as well.According to Samsung Mobile’s president DJ Koh, he revealed that Samsung’s future mid-rangers could be getting the feature as well. He was quoted as saying, “Through continued cost cutting, iris scanning can trickle down to mid-end models. There is a view that Android is weak in security compared to its competitor and we want to expand software security that can overcome this image.”
He also adds that while right now the iris scanning technology is a way to secure your phone from prying eyes (see what we did there), the company has bigger plans for the technology. “We did not put iris scanning in the flagship model just to do ‘unlock’. In the long run, through third parties and API, we want to connect it with apps. For mobile banking, we are thinking of applying iris scanning for large transactions, and are already talking with banks in some countries.”
Koh also revealed that the iris scanning tech in the Note 7 was the result of 3 years of R&D. Samsung is definitely not the first to the scene with the technology, but with their reputation and reach, they could help popularize it for phones in the future.
Filed in . Read more about Galaxy Note 7, Samsung and Security.
