Could SilentSense Rival iPhone 5S' Touch ID Fingerprint Scanner?

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By Eva Recinos2013-09-15 19:05:04 UTC

The iPhone 5S' Touch ID sensor, which takes a photo of a user's fingerprint and then stores the information for identification purposes later on, may have a new rival.

Industry experts predict that other manufacturers will soon follow in Apple's footsteps by creating their own fingerprint scanners. And now, researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology have developed their own variation of the sensor called SilentSense.

Cheng Bo and his colleagues at the institute invented the system, which learns to pick up a person's specific cellphone habits, including fingertip size, the amount of pressure a user puts on the phone and even the way a user walks with the phone in-hand.

According to a description on Cornell University Library's website, Bo and colleagues Lan Zhang and Xiang-Yang Li say that their work is "a framework to authenticate users silently and transparently by exploiting dynamics mined from the user touch behavior biometrics and the micro-movement of the device caused by user's screen-touch actions."

In other words, SilentSense provides mines personalized data that keeps everyone out — except the phone-owner. Based on an initial test, the system identified owners with 99% accuracy when used on a phone running Android.

Do you think entering a code number to unlock your phone will soon be a relic of the past? Sound off in the comments, below.

[via New Scientist ]

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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