14 DAY TRIAL // OK, we certainly didn’t see this coming. Apple had a hard time embedding a fingerprint sensor into the display of the iPhone 8, and the company eventually gave up on the idea because the tech didn’t work as it should, so instead the new model would ship with facial recognition and without a fingerprint scanner.
But while Apple is looking elsewhere for mobile security tech, longtime rival Microsoft thinks there’s a lot of potential in fingerprint sensors integrated into the display and proceeded to patenting such a technology.
A patent discovered by @h0x0d and published on September 7 has Microsoft as the applicant, with several company engineers listed as the inventors. The patent describes a technology that would primarily bring a fingerprint sensor under the touch layer of the display, using several sensors and image processing chips to grant access to a protected device.
Tech built for bezel-less displays
Specifically, Microsoft’s tech describes how the tech would emit a light signal though a cover glass of a display and then capture the reflected light with individual photo-detecting elements. The system would then stitch the captured information and create a composite image that would be used to either provide or block access to the device.
Microsoft provides a description of the technology that sounds surprisingly similar to what Apple has been trying to do on the iPhone 8:
“Bezel-less or very small bezel devices do not leave sufficient area for fingerprint detection components outside of the display area,” the company says. Apple’s iPhone 8 is making the switch to an edge-to-edge display, giving up on bezels, and this is why the company struggled to put the fingerprint sensor under the screen.
With Microsoft not very keen on investing in mobile, there’s a chance such a technology never sees daylight on smartphones running Windows and developed by the company itself. At the same time, patents are only living proof that tech firms are indeed looking into new tech, though there are many cases when all these ideas never get the green light.