It looks like Google is aiming to make facial recognition a more prominent component of its Android operating system for mobile devices, according to recent teardowns of the Beta 4 version of the forthcoming Android Q. The sleuthing found references in the mobile OS’s code to face-based authentication. And while Google had implemented support for…
The mobile sector has been an increasingly prominent one in the larger biometrics market since the Apple’s game-changing launch of Touch ID back in 2013, and with new innovations like Face ID and in-display fingerprint scanning, it shows no signs of slowing down. So it’s no wonder that FindBiometrics’ roundup of this week’s top biometrics…
Google has launched the latest devices in its Pixel line of smartphones, and they once again feature fingerprint sensors from Fingerprint Cards. Launching just seven months after the Pixel 3, the new Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are very similar devices, with one key difference: They’re priced at $399 and $479, respectively, compared to…
Google is consolidating its Nest and Google Home divisions with the Google Nest Hub Max, a slightly bigger version of the Google Home Hub (now the Google Nest Hub) speaker. Beyond the larger size (a 10-inch touchscreen instead of a 7-inch touchscreen), the Nest Hub Max’s most noteworthy addition is a new camera with facial…
The Biometrics Institute has issued seven ethical principles meant to serve as a guideline for how contemporary biometrics technology should be deployed. The list of principles begins with a bit of a tautology – “Ethical behaviour” – and goes on to include “Ownership of the biometric and respect for individuals’ personal data”, “Serving humans”, “Justice…
Google has made some significant improvements to the speech recognizer on its mobile phones. The new software outputs every single character in real time and is entirely contained on the mobile device, which means that the dictation system will work offline with zero latency. Johan Schalkwyk, a Google Fellow with the company’s Speech Team, explained…
The Illinois Supreme Court has issued its ruling on a pivotal case concerning the state’s biometric privacy law, with a unanimous decision upholding its broad scope. The case, Rosenbach v. Six Flags, was brought forward by the mother whose son was, at the age of 14, fingerprinted at the Six Flags amusement park as part…
“By targeting three of the world’s biggest tech companies, the letters could help to focus attention on the issue.” A coalition of 85 advocacy and activist groups have signed open letters urging Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to pledge not to sell facial recognition technology to government authorities. Signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union, the…
“A key component of the GMCNgine is Rekognition, Amazon’s controversial computer vision platform.” Facial recognition technology’s growing role in the fight against child exploitation could see a substantial expansion after the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s launch of a new AI-driven system this week. Called the GMCNgine, the system leverages machine learning and artificial…
At a time of heightened controversy around government use of facial recognition technology, Trueface is laying out its own ethical guidelines for ‘responsibly deployed facial recognition’. Writing in a Medium post, Trueface CEO Shaun Moore groups his firm’s ethos under three main headings. The first, and perhaps most important, is “Humanity First”, a reference to…
![[Money20/20] The Heavy Lifting is Done, Time to Implement FIDO2: McDowell](https://16sp2o45qs973i2kpolavg37-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/assets/M2020Pool-Party-3-620x350.jpg)
FIDO Alliance Executive Director Brett McDowell took the stage with digital financial services expert David Birch on Money20/20’s opening day, and took the opportunity to make the case for the implementation of FIDO standards in financial services (and everywhere else). Speaking to Birch as part of the “Identity Around the World: Global Case Studies in…
“The Pixel 3 smartphones’ fingerprint sensors are rear-mounted, while the Pixel Slate’s fingerprint sensor has been integrated into its power button.” With the unveiling of Google’s latest mobile devices, Fingerprints (FPC) is celebrating some very high-profile deployments. The company has revealed that Google’s Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones, as well as its Pixel Slate…
Google’s focus on artificial intelligence has been central to its strategy in delving into hardware over the last couple of years, and with this week’s launch of its latest Pixel smartphones, that focus is sharper and clearer than ever, with computer vision in particular at its center. To be clear, the voice-based Google Assistant is…
A beta version of the latest Chrome browser for macOS and Android points to the rise of FIDO2-based biometric authentication on the web. The new Chrome 70 feature allows websites to access a fingerprint sensor on their device, and, as 9to5Google reports, this is enabled by default in the Web Authentication API. Websites that take…
New code for the Chrome OS suggests that a forthcoming Chromebook laptop will feature fingerprint-based biometric security. The code snippets concern the enrolment of fingerprints in a Chrome OS device, and indicate that the user can register up to three fingerprints at a time, with the option of resetting them later. And, as 9to5Google points…
It looks like Google is preparing to bring a Face Unlock system to future devices running on its Chrome OS. The revelation comes by way of some newly added code in Chrome’s back-end. While the clues offered in code snippets can sometimes be a bit ambiguous, this sample seems pretty clear, with its key line…
Google appears to be working on a new facial recognition system for its mobile devices, according to a new XDA-Developers report. It’s mostly conjecture, but it’s based on pretty solid footing. Essentially, XDA-Developers has been digging around in code for Google Assistant, Google’s AI-driven virtual helper, and found snippets suggesting that a mysterious feature codenamed…
Google’s developers are going to make biometric authentication stronger on Android P, the next iteration of the company’s popular mobile operating system; and in a new post on the company’s blog, Security Engineer Vishwath Mohan explains how. Essentially, Android’s managers are looking to move beyond FAR and FRR, the standard measures of an authentication mechanism’s…
Google’s face-scanning smart doorbell has hit the UK market. Called Nest Hello, it’s a doorbell with an integrated camera and speaker system, and is designed to connect to other smart home devices via wifi. When someone is at the door, it will send an alert to the user – through a smartphone or Google Home…