Android phone assemblers hope to have fingerprint sensors sometime next year

“Michael Barrett cringes every time he has to enter a password on his smartphone,” Byron Acohido reports for USA Today. “But six months from now Barrett says he will be able to choose from the latest Android models that will come equipped with a biometric sensor capable of letting him swipe his fingerprint to access a wide range of his online accounts.”

“That’s the scenario being proactively pursued by the FIDO Alliance, a group of 48 tech companies, led by PayPal and Lenovo, hustling to implement a milestone technical standard,” Acohido reports. “‘The intention of FIDO is absolutely that it will allow consumers to have access to mobile services that they can use with very low friction, while keeping good security,’ says Barrett, president of the FIDO Alliance.”

Acohido reports, “Apple’s latest iPhone model features a much-ballyhooed fingerprint sensor, called Touch ID, that can be used to lock and unlock the phone, as well as authenticate the user to purchase digital media on iTunes. Touch ID, for the moment, is not FIDO-compliant… However, Barrett says Touch ID could easily be adapted to FIDO. ‘Our view is that it’s possible Apple might choose to start using FIDO, but that’s probably a couple of years out.’ … Silicon Valley start-up Nok Nok Labs is developing the first servers to facilitate FIDO services.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: They call it FIDO because it’s a dog. A slow, late one, at that.

Apple: “Here’s what all of you knockoff peddlers will be trying to copy next year.”

Knockoff peddlers: “Sir, yes, sir! Thank you, sir, may I have another?!”

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39 Comments

    1. ‘Our view is that it’s possible Apple might choose to start using FIDO, but that’s probably a couple of years out.’ … Silicon Valley start-up Nok Nok Labs is developing the first servers to facilitate FIDO services.”

      So how do you intend to activate FIDO in 6 months time when you don’t even have the infrastructure?

      Oops!! Sorry my bad,

      “latest Android models that will come equipped with a biometric sensor capable of letting him swipe his fingerprint to access a wide range of his online accounts.”

      If Gcrookgle says that will happen then it will happen, it wont be Gcrookgles fault if the servers take two years to come online!!!

    1. Apple already figured out the hard part, which is the methods of how it should be work. These Andriod guys, as usual, can’t figure it out until Apple show them how to do it. But they later claim this is common sense anyway, of course no one figure it out until Apple does it.

  1. Are these the same people who were trolling saying that Touch ID was old technology, and that Apple hadn’t innovated on this front? Now they’re 6 months from *maybe* doing something comparable? hahahahahahahaha

  2. FIDO: “We’re a standard and… and Apple isn’t yet compatible with us, and… they… they should be. Even though we’re way behind the 8-ball, come pay attention to us!

    1. “…hustling to implement a milestone technical standard,”
      Except for the fact that Apple just set that milestone standard!
      Are they hoping Apple will just hand over the technology?

  3. FIDO: Frankly, It Doesn’t Operate.

    Why in the world would anyone think of trusting any banking data to Android? WTF?

    ‘The intention of FIDO is absolutely that it will allow consumers to have access to mobile services that they can use with very low friction, while keeping good security…’

    Good Security? Starting from a deficit in that regard, how to you get to ‘Good’, let alone ‘Halfway Decent’?

  4. The standard should not be the technology of the authentication (TouchID, a swipe sensor) …. it should be how the authentication is used by both the OS and individual applications so as to ensure the individual’s security.

  5. What is with these companies and governments and consortiums that want to define standards and hold Apple to them when they’ve never done this before. Apple is doing it now, slowly, with deliberation. Waiting to see where the holes are before they put people’s identities and finances at risk.

    These people need to get some sense into their heads.

  6. “That’s the scenario being proactively pursued by the FIDO Alliance, a group of 48 tech companies, led by PayPal and Lenovo, hustling to implement a milestone technical standard,” Acohido reports.

    Uh, Maybe they should refer to Apple. Looks like they have long since passed the milestone and Apple is “Ballyhooed” as a shipping system with the milestone standard, by 48 companies, is not shipping until next year? A slight slant or gross ignorance?

  7. Various and sundry fingerprint scanners have been tried in mobile devices for years, and never caught on. I don’t know why that was, but I suspect that they were either too slow in responding, or there were many errors (false positives/negatives) that made them too frustrating to use.

    Apple purchased a reliable new fingerprint technology, then customized its iOS/hardware (64-bit) to handle the huge volumes of scanned data in the blink of an eye, just as reliably, and now a third party thinks Apple should incorporate their FIDO “standard” into its proprietary technology? Why would Apple do that? And, what benefit would Apple accrue by doing so? The technology merely authenticates to the device, which then sends on the manual credentials to the system to perform whatever service is in play, whether that’s just to grant access to the device, or to iTunes to authorize purchases. The data saved in the A7’s secure storage area never leaves the device, so it matters little whether Apple’s technology incorporates/complies with a third party’s technology.

  8. But, but, but it’s just a gimmick, and the NSA will collect all your information, and they will cut your fingers off, and they’ll come and take your house and kids away . . . 😉

  9. So FIDO is complaining because Apples existing technology isn’t compatible with their pipe dream? “hustling to implement a milestone technical standard” means they haven’t yet succeeded. Leave them in the dust.

  10. Anyone can “slap” a finger print sensor onto any phone. It’s the tight and near-flawless integration between iPhone + iOS 7 + “Touch ID” + ecosystems + build quality + support + etc… make Apple’s iPhone 5S so compelling to users.

    I will not go as far as to discount Android communities and others’ ability to create a good “Touch ID”-like solution, however it will be a climbing Mt. Everest-like task for them to achieve.

    my 2 cents…

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