BARCELONA
- ZTE doesn't have an entirely new flagship at this year's Mobile World
Congress, but the company added an interesting feature to its existing
top smartphone, the ZTE Grand S3 — eye-based biometric authentication.
The
solution ZTE is using is not new, either — it's actually EyeVerify's
EyePrint ID, and it's not an iris scan. Instead, the EyePrint ID uses
the device's camera to map the blood vessels in the whites of your eye,
which, the company claims, is unique to every person, and doesn't change
with age or stress.
For
the user, the process should be fairly simple: Hold the phone up and
look at it to unlock it — no password required. The setting up process,
which was demoed to us by ZTE, involves looking at the phone's camera
and following a green line moving up and down. It lasts about a minute,
and it worked for us on the first try.
Those
following the smartphone industry closely may remember that a similar
feature was widely rumored to debut in Samsung's Galaxy S5, but it
didn't happen — Samsung relied on fingerprint-scanning security instead.
Now,
ZTE claims the Grand S3 is "one of the first smartphones in the world"
to offer this solution. The company also plans to include the
eye-scanning feature in future Grand series phones, as well as integrate
it with mobile payment solutions and other apps.
Though
the process of unlocking the phone with your eye is pretty simple, it's
even easier to do it with a fingerprint. We spoke to Kan Yulun, ZTE's
CEO of mobile for the EMEA and LATAM regions, and he told us the main
advantage of eye-scanning tech is security. "It's possible to defeat
fingerprint scanning, but the technology we use is much more secure, as
it takes a video of your eyes, and turns into a detailed map. This
cannot be replicated by using someone's photo," he said.
As
for the rest of the Grand S3, it's a pretty powerful Android 4.4 device
but little known outside of China, where it launched on Jan. 17, 2015.
It sports a 5.5-inch, full HD screen, a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 3GB
of RAM and 16GB of memory (expandable with microSD cards) 16-megapixel
back camera coupled with an 8-megapixel one on the front, and a 3,100mAh
battery.
ZTE
Grand S3 with Eyeprint ID is currently available for purchase in China,
priced at 2999 yuan ($479); it will be coming to the U.S. in 2015, but
probably no sooner than Q4.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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