Samsung is introducing a new feature in its next flagship smartphone, a very new way to unlock the lock on the handset. As per a report, the new phone, Samsung Galaxy S7 will have an iris scanner. The report also states that the price of Galaxy S7 will be more than that of Galaxy S6. The price is supposed to be around INR 49,900 or US $ 750.
Rumours say that the new phone will sport an iris scanner and as per Android.com.pl, a Poland tech blog, not only galaxy S7 but all future flagship phone of Samsung will have this feature in it. It contradicts some of the previous reports which had said that this authentication feature will be included only in certain versions of Galaxy S7. Apart from the authentication feature, the phone will be loaded with a range of features, which will give the phone a competitive advantage over other Android phones. The earlier report mentions Samsung S7 will be released in four variants S7 plus, S7 Edge, S7 Edge plus and Samsung Galaxy S7.
The other interesting feature that this phone is going to have is a pressure sensitive display which is very similar to 3D touch hardware capability in iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S plus. Apart from that the design Samsung Galaxy S7 is going to possess is very similar to its predecessor. Sources also disclosed that the S7 will be the first phone to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC. The feature will be implemented in the phone as a part of the partnership between Samsung and Qualcomm. Samsung has an exclusive access to the SoC till April 2016. The exclusive access will give a competitive edge to Samsung Galaxy S7 over all other phones at least till the month of April 2016. Samsung will definitely benefit through it.
For pleasing criminals?
Whether face, iris, fingerprint, typing, gesture, heartbeat or brainwave, biometric authentication could be a candidate for displacing the password if/when (only if/when) it has stopped depending on a password to be registered in case of false rejection while keeping the near-zero false acceptance.
Threats that can be thwarted by biometric products operated together with fallback/backup passwords can be thwarted more securely by password-only authentication We could be certain that biometrics would help for better security only when it is operated together with another factor by AND/Conjunction (we need to go through both of the two), not when operated with another factor by OR/Disjunction (we need only to go through either one of the two) as in the cases of Touch ID and many other biometric products on the market that require a backup/fallback password, which only increase the convenience by bringing down the security.
In short, biometric solutions could be recommended to the people who want convenience but should not be recommended to those who need security. It may be interesting to have a quick look at a slide titled “PASSWORD-DEPENDENT PASSWORD-KILLER” shown at
http://www.slideshare.net/HitoshiKokumai/password-dependent-passwordkiller-46151802