New smartphone is world’s first to read your palm before unlocking, company says
A new smartphone is the world’s first to unlock by reading users’ palms, the phone’s maker says.
But it’s not exactly palmistry: Like fingerprint scans and face ID before it, the palm-reading technology on LG’s new G8 ThinQ smartphone relies on the phone owner’s unique biometric characteristics to make sure only the phone’s rightful owner has access, the company said in a news release about the product.
LG describes the technology as “advanced palm vein authentication,” which uses the phone’s camera to assess the unique markers on each person’s palm, like thickness and shape. The company said what makes the palm-reading possible are time-of-flight (or ToF) sensors in the phone’s camera, which “work by bouncing infrared light off subjects,” the Verge reports.
“Simply placing a pre-registered hand in front of the front-facing camera for a split second is all it takes to unlock the LG G8 ThinQ and all its content,” LG said in its announcement. “Since ToF technology in LG’s Z Camera sees objects in 3D and is not affected by ambient light, accuracy is unaffected by light from external sources.”
The new phone also offers a face unlock and fingerprint sensor option, similar to other smartphones like the iPhone, according to LG.
And mere photos of a hand or face registered to the phone can’t trick it into unlocking, because those images would lack depth, which the camera can pick up on, LG said.
“With multiple forms of biometric authentication, LG is delivering more options for smartphone security than any other manufacturer, allowing consumers to choose which option is most convenient for them,” LG said.
“The underlying technology is actually pretty cool here,” TechCrunch’s Brian Heater writes — at least after you finish “shuddering from how weird the whole thing is on the face of it.”
But Heater said using the phone’s new features wasn’t exactly intuitive.
“I played around with the feature, and if I’m being totally honest, it takes some getting used to,” he wrote. “You’ve got to train yourself to get things just right, which could well dissuade most users from any sort of long-term adoption of features that can pretty quickly (be) accomplished with a tap.”
The phone also comes equipped with an Air Motion feature that lets users pick up calls, turn the volume up or down and more just by moving a hand above the phone — “useful in scenarios like cooking or cleaning,” according to the Korean phonemaker.
That feature was better-received by tech journalists and reviewers.
“Here’s how they work: in order to get the phone’s attention, you have to make a sort of claw with your hand in front of the camera,” Chris Velazco writes for Engadget. “To be clear, the camera can be finicky ... Even so, these gesture controls actually work, and have come in surprisingly handy even during my limited hands-on time.”
LG said in its news release that the phone will be on the shelves in the United States in the next few weeks, “exclusively from Sprint.” It is expected to be released at “another American wireless service provider” later in 2019, according to the release.
LG didn’t say how much the phone will cost.
This story was originally published February 24, 2019 at 4:10 PM with the headline "New smartphone is world’s first to read your palm before unlocking, company says."
