Synaptics Natural ID Biometrics Scanner Will Come To Mobile Devices

Your fingerprint is more important than you think. J Edgar Hoover may have been right about it being a useful law enforcement tool, but fingerprints are also a good option for securing your mobile devices. Synaptics, a leader in the field of biometric recognition, is announcing their Natural ID will be made available for high-end mobile devices. The benefit of Natural ID is that it needs a touch, not a swipe. That will have more mobile device emulating Apple's class-leading Touch ID.

Natural ID is meant for high-end devices, where Synaptics cites an IHS study as reason for their expansion. That study notes that by 2020, 1.4 billion "sensor-enabled" devices will be in the wild.

What makes Natural ID so useful is that it's smart, and doesn't need a swipe to work. Using "advanced capacitive imaging technology and sophisticated digital image processing", Synaptics' actual touch sensor only measures 4mm x 10mm.

For devices with hardware buttons, this will come in handy. We're also wonderign if this is the technology Samsung implemented in their new-look Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices. With their new flagships, Samsung got away from a swiping motion for biometrics, instead opting for a the ability to rest a finger on the home button.

The Natural ID sensor can also be fitted to other devices, like a laptop, and are FIDO compliant.

Though we can't say when this technology might show up on your mobile device (or if it has already), Synaptics says Natural ID sensors are in mass production now.

Source: Synaptics