Tag: Face Unlock

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Mobile Syrup

Google’s midrange Pixel 7a might come with face unlock

All eyes are on Google and its upcoming Pixel 7a. Courtesy of a new leak by Twitter user SnoopyTech, it appears the company is planning to port its Face Unlock feature to the highly anticipated device.

Face Unlock first debuted on the Pixel 4/4 XL. The feature was absent from future Pixel releases, until it reappeared on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.

Similar to Apple’s Face ID, Face Unlock is a form of biometric authentication that scans users’ faces to unlock their phones. Unfortunately, as implemented on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, the feature is not as secure as its competition.

Google’s solution uses the front selfie camera and some software magic to recognize faces. While it’s fast and convenient, it doesn’t include any extra dedicated hardware. This makes competitors such as Apple’s Face ID a more secure solution overall.

Even with this drawback, hopefully, this leak ends up being accurate. The added flexibility would be an appreciated addition to Google’s midrange offering.

The Pixel 7a is rumoured to launch at Google I/O this June.

Source: SnoopyTech Via: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

Android 13 QPR1 Beta 1 code reveals more details of Pixel face unlock

Ahead of the release of Google’s Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, rumours swirled that the devices would support face unlock. However, the phones arrived without the ability to unlock with your face and ever since, publications have obsessively followed the software development of a face unlock feature now expected to arrive with the Pixel 7 series later this year.

The latest details come from 9to5Google, which dug into the Android 13 QPR1 Beta 1 software to examine new code related to face unlock. QPR1 is expected to hit stable in December, but the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro will arrive in October. Also, as with any software investigation like this, it’s important to keep in mind that pre-release and in-development features are subject to change. In other words, what 9to5 learned might not be an accurate reflection of the final product.

Anyway, let’s dig into what they found. First, 9to5 says it spotted several strings — snippets of code including text that will be shown on-screen for users — that describe certain aspects of face unlock. One string says that “Face Unlock works best when there’s enough light and you’re not wearing a mask or dark glasses.”

The bright light requirement effectively confirms that the face unlock feature will use the front-facing camera and not special hardware, like the Pixel 4 or Apple’s Face ID-capable iPhones. An important note here is that the Pixel 6 Pro selfie camera supports dual-pixel autofocus (DPAF), which can be used to develop depth maps of users’ faces. The Pixel 6 selfie camera is different, and likely won’t support face unlock based on DPAF, but the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro are expected to use the same selfie camera hardware with DPAF support.

9to5 also found details about how users interact with face unlock. According to details from the code, users will need to hold their phone at eye level to start the scanning process, and face unlock will only support one face.

Plus, 9to5 extracted a new animation for face unlock:

Credit: 9to5Google

Wrapping things up, 9to5 found details about the accuracy of face unlock, with a warning that face unlock is “less secure than a strong pattern, PIN, or password.” Other warnings include that looking at the phone may cause it to unlock when you don’t intend to, the phone can be unlocked if someone holds it up to your face, even if your eyes are closed, and the phone can be unlocked by someone else who looks a lot like you. Face unlock will require users to pick up their phone or tap the screen, indicating that scanning starts at that point.

Interestingly, code related to face unlock is referred to as ‘Traffic Light’ and was found on the Pixel 6 Pro running QPR1 Beta 1. 9to5 says it didn’t find similar references on the Pixel 6 or 6a.

Source: 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

Google still working on face unlock feature, could launch on Pixel 7: report

Before Google launched the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, rumours indicated the phones would support some level of face unlock. The phones — for better or worse — launched without face unlock, but the rumours persisted. Now, it looks like the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro might offer face unlock.

9to5Google put together an excellent look at the history of the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro face unlock rumours, building into the latest information: the June Pixel Feature Drop included a small, underlying code change for the Pixel 6 series called ‘FACE_UNLOCK_BOOST.’ The change allows the Tensor chip in the Pixel 6 series to boost performance for one second while face unlock is active, presumably to increase how quickly the device can process the face unlock function.

Now, you might be wondering, why add a feature to the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro that enables performance boosts when using face unlock if neither device has face unlock? And, well, that’s kinda the point — this all traces back to those initial leaks about the Pixel 6 series offering face unlock.

Clues in the code

Before the Pixel 6 series launched, we knew that the phones didn’t have specific hardware for face unlock, unlike the previous Pixel 4 and 4 XL. The 4 series sported special hardware, including an IR camera, dot projector, flood illuminator and Google’s ‘Soli’ radar tech to facilitate fast face unlock capabilities. Despite not having any of that hardware, marketing copy for the Pixel 6 line showed off a phone with a settings menu for ‘Face and Fingerprint Unlock.’ Then the phones launched without that menu and with no hint of face unlock support.

Since then, people have dug through Android code and found various references to a face unlock feature, including information about performance tweaks for Tensor. This sparked rumours that Google would bring face unlock to the Pixel 6 line as part of a Feature Drop. A lot of the rumours suggested it would come specifically to the Pixel 6 Pro, and not the cheaper Pixel 6, predicated on differences in selfie camera hardware and on the idea that Google had planned to launch the 6 Pro with face unlock but ultimately dropped the feature because it wasn’t ready.

More recently, someone uncovered a face unlock UI in the Android 13 beta on their Pixel 6 Pro.

Destined for Pixel 7?

All this brings us back to today, with 9to5 suggesting that Google has made headway on face unlock that doesn’t require specific hardware like on the Pixel 4. If Google had a fancy new machine learning (ML) face unlock feature, it’d likely want to launch it with the Pixel 7 series as a major new feature. But, that raises a few other questions. For one, if Google worked on face unlock for the Pixel 6 Pro, could it also have plans to bring the feature to the 6 Pro in the future? Going by Google’s track record, if face unlock is software-based, it might trickle down to older phones. However, Google could list face unlock as a feature that requires Tensor 2 for processing, ruling out a potential Pixel 6 Pro upgrade.

Moreover, given that leaks indicate the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro sport the same selfie camera hardware this year, that could mean we’ll see face unlock on both devices instead of on just the Pro model as was rumoured with the Pixel 6 series.

Of course, we’ve still got a ways to go before the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro arrive. We may learn more about a possible face unlock feature before then, or learn that the phones won’t support face unlock at all. Right now, all we’ve got is evidence Google worked on some kind of face unlock feature. Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee Google will ship the feature in a new product.

Source: 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

Google’s Pixel 6 series may get face unlock in future update

The rumoured face unlock feature for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro may arrive in a future update, like one of Google’s regular Pixel feature drops.

According to an XDA Recognized Developer who goes by ‘Freak07’ (@mile_freak07 on Twitter), Pixel 6 devices still include code related to face unlock in the ‘PowerHAL’ config file. In a series of tweets, Freak07 said that Google added a tool for face unlock to the config file under the internal codename ‘Tuscany’ back in July.

Freak07 also shared a link to a commit about face unlock, which seems to focus on adjusting power usage to save battery.

Some readers may remember that leaked marketing material from before the Pixel 6 launch showed off the face unlock feature. However, face unlock wasn’t on the Pixel 6 series at launch. Although it’s unclear why Google didn’t include face unlock — perhaps there were too many bugs, or maybe developers weren’t able to reduce the battery hit caused by Tuscany.

Regardless, some code for face unlock remains in the Pixel 6 PowerHAL file. That could mean Google’s working on bringing face unlock to Pixel 6 phones in the future, or it could just be some leftover code from previous work on the file.

Even if Google did bring face unlock to the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, it’s not clear how it’d work. The only other Pixels with face unlock were the Pixel 4 and 4 XL, which had dedicated hardware for it. The Pixel 6 series doesn’t have that hardware, which likely means the phone would use the front-facing camera — as we’ve learned with similar attempts from other phones, camera-based face unlock isn’t exactly secure or reliable.

Source: Freak07 (Twitter), Google Git, XDA Developers Via: Android Police