Image-Based Authentication Techniques Could Be Coming To Apple Products
February 7, 2013
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published a new Apple patent application entitled, “Image-Based Authentication.” The new creation could mean an entirely new authentication system is coming to Mac and iOS products in the future, according to Patently Apple.
In the filing, Apple suggests that authentication techniques currently available are “easily compromised.”
For example, a thief sitting on a bus may notice the four characters that an unsuspecting person entered on the person's smartphone.Apple’s new Image-Based Authentication system could replace text validation by “(1) selecting at least one image that depicts one or more objects with which the user should be familiar, where the image is stored persistently on the computing device, and (2) displaying the image. An object may be a person's face, for example.” Ethan Lowry, Apple’s Quality Assurance manager for Apple TV, is cited as the inventor of this creation. See also: Apple Awarded Patents For 'Slide-To-Unlock,' iPhone 3GS, A Laser-Based Keyboard For iPad Could Really Be Coming This Time, and Apple Working On A Smart Device That Tells Users When To Replace Their Sneakers. Source: Patently Apple