Apple patents touch display that KNOWS YOU by your fingers Apple's next iPhone is widely rumored to include a fingerprint sensor, but if Cupertino's latest patent filing is any indication, it may be a sensor unlike anything we've seen before. Apple's filing goes by the tongue-twisting title "Finger sensor having pixel sensing circuitry for coupling electrodes and pixel sensing traces …
Once the system has your finger prints you can't get them back.
But thats ok because if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/09/post_office_admits_false_accusations_after_computer_system_cockup/
http://www.laticsdrivertraining.com/blog/2009/04/28/bbc-watchdog-investigates-dvla-licence-blunder/
Since coming to the US I've been required to submit fingerprints: (i) in order to apply for a visa; (ii) every time I wish to enter the country; and (iii) in order to get a driving licence. The last one applies equally to US citizens, and is the general norm for official agencies.
To my native UK I've been required to submit fingerprints: never.
So I suspect Americans have already come to terms with giving their fingerprints away.
did they have it stuffed and put it on a key fob?
Gruesome thought! Maybe some bad guys do just that. More likely they use the amputated digit to drive the car to the criminals garage, where the car is dismantled for spares.
Life is cheap in SA(*). People count themselves lucky if a carjacker leaves them alive, instead of shooting them dead for a more certain getaway.
(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Firearm-homicide rate UK 0.04 USA 3.6 SA 17.0
A far more useful and practical usage of this sort of technology would be to allow the device to recognise the specific digit you are using to touch whichever region of the screen. That would open up all sorts of UI "multi-touch" options, like touching with thumb means one thing but index finger another.
So if someone wants to steal your phone they may need to cut off a digit as well. I can see this happening.in some countries. So if you go abroad it might be an idea to leave your NSA iSheep product at home, unless you like cheap body modification.
The back of a phone is often unused space, so why not put a reader there? Trying to combine a screen and fingerprint reader seems like an expensive way to compromise the quality of both.
The more iPhones get stolen, the more replacements are bought. We know that there's been considerable resistance to making smartphones less attractive to thieves. Perhaps Apple are planning for regulation in this area or are increasingly worried that more people will think that the best defence against a big financial loss is to buy an Android smartphone that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to replace.
Now i'm hardly apples biggest fan but did you actualy bother to read the article? At all?
Even skim reading the other comments would have given you the gist.
I've had a few thinkpads and a dell or two with a fingerprint scanner. I don't recall any of them having the scanner built into the TOUCH SCREEN.
This, for once, is actually something that hasn't really been done before. Rather than an attempt to patent "the wheel".
"Let's say you've been using a lathe or something and all your fingerprints have rubbed off? How do you unlock your phone then?"
Very good point. And suppose you're on a desert island and you've cut your hands off using a machete whilst harvesting coconuts. And your phone's flat and you've no way of charging it? and it's not your phone - you found it? And it's not even an iPhone, but an original old non-GSM Motorola? How does your fancy-shmancy technology work now, Apple? Huh?!?? HUH?!?!
See - that told 'em....
Buggrit....
Canadian oilfield workers can lose their fingerprints permanently. It's caused by repeatedly getting frostbitten fingertips, in turn caused by removing gloves in winter to do something fiddly, and accidentally touching a metal surface onto which one's finger-tip will instantly freeze.
Criminals have been known to attempt the same using a freezer. I suspect a freezer isn't as cold as outdoors in a Canadian winter.
Well there's always Ear-prints but this does rely on the next generation of phones being held against the head in the traditional manner.
There was also was some biometric research done over two decades ago on the unique echo signature of an individuals audatory canal.. the bit you shove the cotton bud into, I suppose that could work in theory for phone handsets.
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