Apple granted patent for face detection technology that could be used on the iPhone 8

Apple was granted a patent for a face detection technology on Tuesday. The company’s new asset, which involves human face recognition in digital video feeds via depth map information, could be utilised as a full-fledged feature on the upcoming iPhone 8.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awarded the Cupertino, California-based tech titan its US Patent No. 9,589,177 for “Enhanced face detection using depth information.” The patent involves a computer vision technology derivative that uses dedicated hardware and software systems to perform facial recognition. Here’s what the patent description states:

“A method for face detection includes capturing a depth map and an image of a scene and selecting one or more locations in the image to test for presence of human faces. At each selected location, a respective face detection window is defined, having a size that is scaled according to a depth coordinate of the location that is indicated by the depth map. Apart of the image that is contained within each face detection window is processed to determine whether the face detection window contains a human face. Similar methods may also be applied in identifying other object types.”

The patent was filed by Apple on March 22, 2015. The company may incorporate the new technology on the upcoming iPhone 8. While no official word from Apple has been made (since the Mac maker has been mum about its upcoming releases), recent reports indicate that the company is going to equip the next premium iPhone with the new feature.

According to the most recent info from KGI insider Ming-Chi Kuo, the forthcoming iPhone 8 is likely to equip a “revolutionary” front-facing 3D camera system that can be used for an assortment of applications, including security verification and gaming. But advanced biometrics is only one of the speculated features of this year’s iPhone, which is said to be feature-packed since 2017 marks the iconic Apple handset’s decade-long dominance of the mobile phone industry. The company is expected to beef up the next iPhone with stuff never before seen in previous models.

The iPhone 8, if it pushes through, could be the first Apple smartphone to use an OLED display panel. Not only that, the handset is reportedly going to furnish a 5.8-inch edge-to-edge curved display just like the new Samsung Galaxy S8 (see related story below). Unfortunately, innovation is costly, and the premium anniversary iPhone is projected to sell for about US$1,000 (AU$1,315).

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