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Apple Technology

Apple's Mixed Reality Headset To Offer Iris Scanning for Payments, Logging In (theinformation.com) 33

By the time Apple introduces its much-anticipated mixed reality headset -- planned for sometime next year -- Meta Platforms will have had the advantage of selling products in the category to the public for almost seven years. But Apple's device will also have a few technological tricks up its sleeve that even the latest Meta headset can't boast of. From a report: For example, Apple's device is expected to have the ability to scan the irises of people wearing the headsets so they can quickly log into their accounts simply by putting the devices on their heads, according to two people who helped develop the Apple headset. The capability will make it easier for multiple people to use the same device and allow them to quickly make payments inside the headset, just as iPhones allow people to confirm payments using scans of their fingerprints or faces, the people said.

The planned iris-scanning features, which haven't been previously reported, fill out the details about the Apple headset that have begun trickling out over the last year or so. Apple's device is also expected to have 14 cameras, as The Information previously reported, compared to the 10 on the headset Meta announced earlier this week, the Quest Pro. The abundance of cameras is designed to better capture the body movements of people wearing the headsets so Apple's technology can more faithfully represent them through their digital avatars. The setup includes two downward-facing cameras to capture a user's legs, a feature the Quest Pro doesn't have, the people said.

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Apple's Mixed Reality Headset To Offer Iris Scanning for Payments, Logging In

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  • by doragasu ( 2717547 ) on Friday October 14, 2022 @09:04AM (#62965805)

    Meta headset is for Virtual Reality, while Apple one seems to be for Augmented Reality. While they have some technologies in common, their goals are different.

    • Meta headset is for Virtual Reality, while Apple one seems to be for Augmented Reality. While they have some technologies in common, their goals are different.

      From what I had been reading, I was under the impression that Apple was actually going after both markets?

      Two different products...at least from mockups I've seen online....

      The VR looks like the typical full blow large headset, but the AR stuff looks more like nomal glasses...?

    • Of course. Augmented reality is effectively saying: we are bringing accessibility technologies normally afforded to the disabled to the broader community.

      Eye Tracking has been shown extremely useful for improved reading comprehension as you can see where the eye lingers, infer struggle to offer suggestions, increase or decrease font sizing, line spacing, or scroll fields as you reach the ends.

      Object Recognition and Size / Distance Detection - things that are ingrained in most people from birth - to allo
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday October 14, 2022 @09:06AM (#62965809)

    How do you change biometric features if they get compromised?

    • How do you change biometric features if they get compromised?

      Well, I would kinda hope that the biometric stuff would be optional, like it is on their other current products (iPhone, iPad, etc)....

      I refuse to do any type of face scan, or fingerprint for my security, I still go for the old fashioned (longer than 4 characters) password.

      Sure, it may take a bit longer to open my phone up for a call, but if I miss getting it open in time, that's what voicemail is for...

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      Especially considering that iris scanning hasn't really shown itself to be all that difficult to defeat.

    • That's the neat part, you don't! Never using biometrics, especially on a mobile device where police can compel you to unlock. Can't with a pin or password.

      • I have lots of cat pictures. A pile of flirtatious texts (many from my wife's friends... Some from their husbands because they felt left out). I have photos of my projects... Engineering, sewing, even some autonomous drone weapons.

        All in all, I have no issues with cops unlocking my phone. It wouldn't make a difference. Why does it matter if I unlock it or the Israelis do. This is why there is encrypted cloud storage.
  • With the rumors of this device being well into the four-figure range, this isn't a feature (or bug depending on your personal privacy viewpoint) that mere mortals are going to care about. Make the diopter fully adjustable and sacrifice this feature.

    • With the rumors of this device being well into the four-figure range, this isn't a feature (or bug depending on your personal privacy viewpoint) that mere mortals are going to care about. Make the diopter fully adjustable and sacrifice this feature.

      The Quest Pro and HoloLense are also in the four figure range, just saying.

      But yes, especially anything that expensive ought to have fully adjustable diopters. Everything else is a beta test as far as I'm concerned. It's like headphones without volume control.

  • Can I use it to (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Friday October 14, 2022 @09:26AM (#62965869)

    Can I use to permanently opt out of /. daily news from the fucking popup that has just started appearing for me?

    FFS the choices are basically Cancel or Yes. There is no "No, I don't want to fucking see this pop up again" choice.

    All advice as to how to avoid is crap is welcome.

    • Ok I’m not the only one getting pestered by that.

    • It's not coming up for me. I have noscript and adblock but I enable scripts from slashdot and fsdn so the script must be third party.

      • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        It's not coming up for me. I have noscript and adblock but I enable scripts from slashdot and fsdn so the script must be third party.

        Hmmm .. I have Adblock as well, but I just noticed that it was set to "allow ads on this page". I changed it to disallow. It will be interesting to see if that changes things.

        Of course I also have also checked /. "disable ads", but that only blocks some ads.

        • I see the popup on my phone, but not on my computer.

          Of course on my phone I also see that I've checked the "disable ads" box, yet still see over a dozen ads appended to the bottom of each page... in addition to that popup appearing with *every* page load.

    • Can I use to permanently opt out of /. daily news from the fucking popup that has just started appearing for me?

      On the Apple headset, once it permanently welds itself to your face on first use, you'll see the Slashdot popup every time you eat, or if you are looking at something the headset deems boring.

      What, you thought the heavy Apple story count on Slashdot was an accident? Nope that is called long-term planning my friend.

    • There is no "No, I don't want to fucking see this pop up again" choice.

      All advice as to how to avoid is crap is welcome.

      We already retain the option to opt-out of Slashdot. Altogether. This is feeling like the straw that might break the camel's back for many.

    • If you are running an ad blocker, you can add the pop-up to the blocked elements and never see it again. I had to add it for each of the slashdot subdomains it appears on.

  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday October 14, 2022 @09:30AM (#62965879) Homepage Journal

    The really impressive part is that it self-applies [youtube.com].

  • The well-heeled people who will buy this shit will have enough money for thieves to consider it worthwhile to steal their eyes - or even their heads - in order to gain access to their accounts.

    All serious access control should be based on 2FA or higher, with at least one of the factors being something you have, and another being something you know. If something you possess is enough to gain access, and the "something" is a body part, well...

    • The well-heeled people who will buy this shit will have enough money for thieves to consider it worthwhile to steal their eyes - or even their heads - in order to gain access to their accounts.

      If thieves have access to their eyes or heads, I think the least of these peoples' worries will be their money.

      All serious access control should be based on 2FA or higher, with at least one of the factors being something you have, and another being something you know. If something you possess is enough to gain access, and the "something" is a body part, well...

      You do know that in multi-factor authentication something you have is not a body part, right? Something you have is a thing that is assigned to you.

      • something you know (password)
      • something you have (RSA token, phone app)
      • something you are (DNA, retinal scan, fingerprint scan)

      Off the top of my head additional factors can be added:

      • somewhere you are (secure computer located in a facility)
      • some time y
    • by davecb ( 6526 )
      An eye isn't so much "something you have" as an alias for your username. Unlike non-body-part "somethings", they're not changeable. As you noted, that make theft a little more problematic than usual (;-))
    • Nobody's going to keep anything important in "The Metaverse" any time soon. Even when banking becomes available there, you'll need to present credentials to do it beyond your login, just as you do now with your computer and your bank's website.

  • This is by far the most ambitious project Apple will release that has had little to no involvement by Steve Jobs. Under Jobs, Apple offered products in sectors that were already defined but Apple's product either took a unique approach or worked like all of its competitors, albeit with far more polish. From the rumors, it sounds like Apple has put a lot of thought into how AR can be used to enhance everyday tasks and even though I'll never buy another Apple product, I'm curious if this project will do any
    • Apple's hardware people are first-rate. The problem is, their coders are definitely not first-rate... they used to be, but the best people on the software side left Apple several years ago.

      I expect the hardware will be really cool (even though I have no personal desire to buy it), but actually using it will be buggy and annoying. The true fanboys will still talk around all the problems, as they always do.

  • The story goes like this:

    The market is flush with companies that don't get it quite right, Apple studies the market, reduces it to the bare essentials and iterates over that internally until it gets it to the point where they feel it's just right. Then they launch, with some small, seemingly ignorable innovation, people complain: "It's too expensive", "such and such did it before"... but in reality almost nobody is as detail and customer oriented as Apple.

    Then they launch and eat a large chunk of the ma

  • Not again a pseudosecurity device, that like fingerprint sensor is in every phone now making it heavier and pricier. Any body part scanning device can not fulfill basic security needs. It is convenient, but insecure as heck.

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