Samsung forgets fingerprints, focuses its eye on YOURS

When Samsung shoved the Galaxy S5 out the door last year, one of the things it put front and centre was the new ability to log on with one's fingerprint.

Fast forward twelve months and Sammy looks to be giving that idea a finger of a different sort, by signing a deal with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to put iris-scanning technology into future smartphone and tablet products.

The Korean mobe-maker has decided the first application of the technology will be in business products, with SRI's announcement stating that there's to be a custom Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 using the technology.

The Iris on the Move (IoM) biometric systems are already offered in various SRI-branded products, but a tie-up with Samsung will deliver a much bigger potential market to the R&D company.

Adopting iris scanning gives Samsung a gentle exit from fingerprint scanning, whichturned out to be easily duped by a hacker imprinting a fingerprint image onto a mould.

SRI says the eye-scanning Galaxy Tab will be demonstrated at April's ISC West trade show in Las Vegas – incidentally giving the US company a handy reference customer for something it hopes to flog to World+Dog.

SRI heavily boosts the accuracy of its iris scan, saying it's “1,000 times” more accurate than fingerprints for authenticating users. The company also says the “glance-and-go” IoM system works without demanding the user hold their eyes still for scanning. ®