REPORTING FROM BARCELONA—This year's Mobile World Congress has featured a bevy of notable smartphone releases, but the show floor is also home to some intriguing, forward-looking technology demos. Fingerprint scanning dominated last year's mobile security realm, but this year's show featured two new takes on eye-scanning tech for locking down your mobile device.
Fujitsu's iris-scanning tech will face off with ZTE's retina-scanning alternative, while both look to take on Apple and Samsung's fingerprint-scanning options. We had a chance to see both systems in action on the show floor.
Let's start with ZTE, since the Chinese company already has a market-ready solution for its eye-scanning tech. ZTE had its Grand S3 smartphone on display, which is the first to feature the company's retina-scanning technology.
Using an 8-megapixel, front-facing camera, the Grand S3 scans blood vessel patterns on your retina. From the lock screen, a pull down from the top initiates the eye-scanning system, where a green line scans up and down the user's eyes. This worked with the phone held about a foot away from the face, and even worked with glasses on a ZTE rep. While it wasn't particularly speedy in our initial demo, ZTE promises that the system's speed will improve with more use. ZTE also says that an API will be made available to select partners to integrate the retina-scanning security into more apps.
Fujitsu's system is distinct from ZTE's, though the company only had a prototype model available for a quick demo. Instead of retinal scanning with a traditional camera, Fujitsu uses an infrared camera and infrared LED module to scan individuals' iris patterns. Fujitsu reps claim the 1 in 250,000 failure rate is superior to other eye-scanning alternatives. In our demo, the iris-scanning was nearly instantaneous and easily outpaced ZTE's retina scanning. The big catch is that Fujitsu currently only has a concept model, with only a promise of integration into devices later this year or next.
Mobile security is a huge area of interest at this year's show, with companies like Silent Circle focused on the software side and new innovations like the eye-scanning tech from ZTE and Fujitsu. Does the world really need more than passcodes or fingerprints? Fujitsu and ZTE are betting yes, but we'll wait and see if the futuristic tech can reach mainstream adoption.