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Early Prototype of Apple's Touch ID Demoed by AuthenTec Co-Founder

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Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor, one of the core features of the iPhone 5s, has received universally positive reviews due to its simplicity, its speed, and its position as a feature that is far from gimmicky, unlike some competing products.

The fingerprint sensor technology came from AuthenTec, a small semiconductor company based in Melbourne, Florida, acquired by Apple in July of 2012. AuthenTec co-founder F. Scott Moody detailed both the company's acquisition and the technology behind Touch ID during a presentation that took place on at North Carolina State University on Tuesday, which AppleInsider attended.
[Moody] explained to the students that it's AuthenTec's technology behind an 8-millimeter by 8-millimeter sensor found beneath the iPhone 5s home button.

"We're looking at pores, structures of ridges and valleys, and instantaneously tell who you are," Moody said. "Every time you use it, it learns more about you. Because it knows, 'This is Alex,' every time you use it gets easier and easier."
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Before Apple's Touch ID, AuthenTec worked on the FingerLoc, a product that originally attracted Apple's attention. FingerLoc was a bulky solution housed in a box much larger than an iPhone, which connected via ribbon cable to another, larger box.

fingerloc.jpg
Like the existing Touch ID fingerprint sensor, the FingerLoc incorporated a metal ring that functioned as a capacitor. According to Moody, AuthenTec teamed up with several dermatologists in order to perfect the capacitor, which is designed to send a signal through the outer layer of skin. "With other sensors, your ridges would collapse into the valleys," said Moody. "Ours doesn't."

Over the course of several years, AuthenTec revised and improved the FingerLoc, shrinking the size of the sensor and lowering the price point until it came up with a final product that interested several technology companies, namely Apple.
When AuthenTec came out with their final product, the company generated interest from a number of customers, including Apple, Motorola and Fujitsu. Apple, in particular, "ate it up," Moody said, and eventually bought the entire company in 2012 for $356 million.

"We had a great team of engineers -- which I think is highlighted by the fact that Apple kept the engineering team," he said.
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According to Apple, AuthenTec's Touch ID sensor captures a high-resolution image of a fingerprint, which it then analyzes to provide accurate readings. Though fears have been raised the fingerprint storage process and the security of the system, Apple has assured users that the iPhone 5s stores only fingerprint data, publishing an extensive knowledge base article detailing Touch ID.

Article Link: Early Prototype of Apple's Touch ID Demoed by AuthenTec Co-Founder
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/16/early-prototype-of-apples-touch-id-demoed-by-authentec-co-founder/
Patriks7

Patriks7

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Pretty impressive how they went from that device to fitting it into a (relatively small) smartphone!
 
PracticalMac

PracticalMac

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So it uses a technology never before used by other fingerprint scanner and apparently significantly more accurate. Apple effectively has a lock on the best fingerprint scanner in world.

Samsung will be copying this big time.


PS, when will we see this on MacBooks?
 
doelcm82

doelcm82

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Patriks7 said:
Pretty impressive how they went from that device to fitting it into a (relatively small) smartphone!
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Considering that the iPhone has more processing power than the giant "Supercomputers" of yesteryear, it's not surprising. Impressive, but not surprising.
 
thefourthpope

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I think I'm most impressed at how quickly Apple was able to incorporate this tech into an existing--and already pretty complete--product.
 
cmichaelb

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It is interesting that it reads pores etc. That level detail is impressive, I was unaware of that.

Who knew the home button could be so versatile? Apple had the perfect location already built in and millions of users all ready trained. Great forward thinking.
 
KdParker

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cmichaelb said:
It is interesting that it reads pores etc. That level detail is impressive, I was unaware of that.

Who knew the home button could be so versatile? Apple had the perfect location already built in and millions of users all ready trained. Great forward thinking.
Click to expand...

Or just fortunate, there was lots of talk previously about removing the home buttton to have more screen.
 
giantfan1224

giantfan1224

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cmichaelb said:
It is interesting that it reads pores etc. That level detail is impressive, I was unaware of that.

Who knew the home button could be so versatile? Apple had the perfect location already built in and millions of users all ready trained. Great forward thinking.
Click to expand...

Yet the fandroids in mass claim Apple can't innovate. The Touch ID is a perfect example of Apple innovating, even if fingerprint identification systems have existed before on electronic devices.
 
0

0029937

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KdParker said:
Or just fortunate, there was lots of talk previously about removing the home buttton to have more screen.
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The Blackberry Z10 has no home button with a swipe up gesture used to activate the home screen. Using it was really slick and I thought for sure Apple would do this with the iPhone 6 to make the screen bigger but at the same time make the bezels on all 4 sides of the screen smaller to compensate. With this Touch ID it doesn't look like they'll be getting rid of the home button anytime soon.
 
Tronic

Tronic

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Having never used a password for my iPhones I thought TouchID would be the thing that converted me over. Unfortunately, I decided to switch it off after a few days for the simple fact that TouchID requires "immediate" passcode instead of allowing me to choose 5 or 10 min intervals. Having to scan my finger every min sometimes got old fast.

Anyone else feel the same? This is such a silly software choice on Apple's part.
 
0

0029937

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I'm surprised by how little talk there is from people about the hopes of paying with your mobile device in the next 1-2 years. Seems like the natural evolution of payment, I hate bringing my wallet with me. So bulky and let's face it, not secure at all to have all your cards and cash in there.
 
Time Less

Time Less

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Tronic said:
Having never used a password for my iPhones I thought TouchID would be the thing that converted me over. Unfortunately, I decided to switch it off after a few days for the simple fact that TouchID requires "immediate" passcode instead of allowing me to choose 5 or 10 min intervals. Having to scan my finger every min sometimes got old fast.

Anyone else feel the same? This is such a silly software choice on Apple's part.
Click to expand...

i don't have a 5s but i thought it's every 48 hours that the phone needs your passcode?
 
TimeSquareDesi

TimeSquareDesi

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kappaknight said:
It's sad that something like this (useful) was bought for $356M whereas something like Instagram (pointless) was bought for a billion. :rolleyes:
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If you knew what they were doing with the pictures uploaded to instagram, you would think that the $1bn price tag was a bargain.

Do some research into why they paid so much for it. It's not simply to share photos of peoples lunches. There are real (and scary) reasons why FB bought it.
 
giantfan1224

giantfan1224

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TimeSquareDesi said:
If you knew what they were doing with the pictures uploaded to instagram, you would think that the $1bn price tag was a bargain.

Do some research into why they paid so much for it. It's not simply to share photos of peoples lunches. There are real (and scary) reasons why FB bought it.
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It would be nice if you could site some examples of "real and scary reasons", instead of leaving it up to us to do our own research.
 
Tronic

Tronic

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Time Less said:
i don't have a 5s but i thought it's every 48 hours that the phone needs your passcode?
Click to expand...

With TouchID, apple locks the "require passcode" field to "immediately." If you choose passcode only, you can set it to 1,2,5,10, etc min increments so that if you lock and unlock repeatedly, you don't have to enter a pass code each time. Id like to change that setting to 10 mins but you can't currently.
 
C

ChrisA

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I have to laugh at those people who think someone might steal fingerprints from the memory in the iPhone. They forget that they already have left their finger prints on ever object they have ever touched in their entire life. I bet none of them think much about the glasses and silverware when they go out to eat or the door handle at the front of their house or a pen they leave on the dest or cash use to pay at the store. Finger prints are on everything.

In fact even the guy who figured out how to defeat the finger print sensor needed a copy of the iPhone owner's fingerprint. What does he do? Uses fingerprint powder on the glass touch screen and photographs the screen. Why bother to hack the phone when 100 copies of the owners prints are all over the glass?
 
O

OC40

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0029937 said:
I'm surprised by how little talk there is from people about the hopes of paying with your mobile device in the next 1-2 years. Seems like the natural evolution of payment, I hate bringing my wallet with me. So bulky and let's face it, not secure at all to have all your cards and cash in there.
Click to expand...

People still carry cash? :)

I use a card "wallet": license, debit card, credit card, health insurance card and a few business cards.

All joking aside, I agree on your payment quote.
 
Rogifan

Rogifan

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Tronic said:
With TouchID, apple locks the "require passcode" field to "immediately." If you choose passcode only, you can set it to 1,2,5,10, etc min increments so that if you lock and unlock repeatedly, you don't have to enter a pass code each time. Id like to change that setting to 10 mins but you can't currently.
Click to expand...

But doesn't touch id essentially immediately unlock you?
 
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