Forget Fingerprints: Japanese Smartphone Scans Iris To Unlock Phone, Make Payments

Using your fingerprints to make mobile payments is so 2014. A new smartphone from Japan scans your eyes instead.

Starting in late May, NTT Docomo in partnership with Fujitsu will begin selling the Arrows NX F-04G, one of the first phones with iris scanning biometrics. Consumers will be able to use the technology to unlock their phones with their eyes, make mobile payments and log in to a number of Docomo services. According to Fujitsu, it does this by using a combination of an infrared camera and infrared LED to shine light on a user’s eye and capture their iris pattern.

A prototype of the iris scanning phone was first unveiled and demonstrated in March during Mobile World Congress. A similar technology was also introduced by Viewsonic in a promotional video for its V55 smartphone in January. But it has yet to be released to the public. Unlike fingerprint scanners such as those found on the Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6, the iris scanner lets users unlock their phones without the need to take off their gloves or worry about unsavory characters making copies of their fingerprints.

Beyond iris scanning, the Arrows NX F-04G comes with a 5.2-inch QHD resolution display, 3GB RAM, 32GB of storage and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.