Just when you think you’ve seen everything smartphones have to offer, a company comes out to announces a technology that will help make them interesting for at least another year.
LG, via subsidiary LG Innotek, announced today that it has developed a new fingerprint scanning module that is capable of reading a fingerprint even when under 0.3mm of glass.
Besides changing the look of a phone, the buttonless sensor brings with it several other advantages. One less button means a device that is easier to waterproof; there are less spaces for water to sneak into. We could also see front-facing speakers systems HTC’s BoomSound setup make a comeback. HTC ditched proper front-facing BoomSound speakers with its two most smartphones, the A9 and HTC 10, in order to add a fingerprint sensor to the front of the two phones.
There’s also little reason not to adopt the tech. LG Innotek says its current prototypes generate a false positive about once every 50,000 scans, a rate that’s comparable to current fingerprint scanners found on phones like the iPhone 6s and Galaxy S7.
The technology is expected to start making its way to new smartphones later this year.
Related reading: HTC 10 review: Back to basics
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