iPhone 8 Facial Recognition Technology Detailed In New Apple Patent

It appears Apple is serious with launching a new iPhone installment with facial recognition capabilities. The Cupertino giant has just been awarded with a patent for an invention that involves face detection using depth information.

U.S. patent 9,589,177 was granted to Apple by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, and it is a patent that details how face detection or facial recognition will work on an upcoming device, which is very likely to be the iPhone 8. Based on this new document, Apple is working on a technology that would allow the recognition of faces in digital video feeds using depth map data and images of the scene or background.

The depth map will help in plotting the coordinates of the human faces that will be detected at a particular location. A respective face detection window will then mark the human face. A portion of the window will scan what it has detected to ensure that it is a human face. What’s making this technology even more interesting is the fact that Apple indicated in the patent that this will also have applications in other object types.

The patent also mentions the hardware and software systems that are needed to run this computer vision technology for the identification of human faces and other objects. The apparatus for face detection is revealed to be composed of a depth sensor, a camera and a processor.

On the other hand, a specific computer software is needed for all hardware parts to work together. This software contains program instructions on how to combine and utilize the data collected by the depth sensor, camera and processor.

Although this invention can confirm that Apple is working on a feature that would allow facial recognition using the iPhone 8, it does not state the practical use of this technology. For one thing, the mentioned hardware and software can only identify human faces and not really determine to whom a specific face belongs. Hence, the patent does not confirm if Apple would indeed be relying on facial recognition for identity verification

According to Apple Insider, this new patent is part of the stash Tim Cook’s company acquired after it purchased Israeli motion capture specialist PrimeSense back in 2013. Other patents that have been approved thus far include those for 3D mapping and a 3D virtual keyboard.

Rumors about facial recognition being a security feature of the iPhone 8 surfaced after KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said last month that the next flagship smartphone from the Cupertino giant will come with a front-facing 3D camera system that has biometric authentication functionality.