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Next year’s fingerprint sensors could fit into volume rocker buttons, guard against spoofing

Synaptics has provided fingerprint sensors for a number of different smartphones, the HTC One Max among them, but Engadget says that it has a much sleeker version in the works.

Synaptics’ latest fingerprint sensor for mobile devices measures only 3.5 mm wide. It’s so thin and tiny, it can fit inside a volume rocker switch on the side of your smartphone or tablet.

The company says it has also found a way to prevent the use of fake fingerprints by a new algorithm that can distinguish live fingers from printed replicas.

We probably won’t be seeing the new reader make it into phones until next year, though, as Synaptics says mass-production isn’t due to start until the third quarter of this year. There’s as yet no word of which phone brands might be looking to include it.

We’re also expecting to see the company’s pressure-sensitive screens coming to some Android devices later this year.

Image for illustration only: 91mobiles.com

How to: Train your Nexus 5X/6P to recognize your finger even when you miss [Video]

I’ve had a Nexus 5X for just a few days, and one of the biggest things I love about this phone is the addition of Nexus Imprint. I like to keep my phone secure, but I really don’t like having to type a password every time I unlock (because, well, I unlock my phone dozens if not hundreds of times per day). But something I quickly noticed with Nexus Imprint on the 5X — especially since I have fingers big enough for a 6P — is that I simply miss the sensor far too often. I commonly find myself overshooting, sometimes even tapping on the camera since that’s about the distance my finger naturally lands.

So how did I fix this? Well, it turns out that it’s actually pretty simple. Thanks to the fact that you can register up to five different fingerprints in the Nexus Imprint settings, you can make your sensor almost impossible to miss. Instead of adding five different fingers, I decided to try adding five different parts of my right index finger…
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New video compares Touch ID to the Galaxy S5’s fingerprint scanner

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3C6OW8eMGk]

Samsung hasn’t officially launched its next-gen smartphone, the Galaxy S5, just yet but the comparisons to Apple’s latest model are already starting. The S5 features a fingerprint-reader much like the iPhone’s, so YouTube user iCrackUriDevice put both phones head-to-head to determine which device sported the superior scanner.

Both devices have pros and cons. The iPhone 5s has the ability to scan your fingerprint from any angle, while the Galaxy can only detect a downward swipe across the scanner at a very specific angle. On the other hand, the Galaxy can use its fingerprint reader to authorize PayPal purchases, while the iPhone can only authenticate sales on Apple’s own iTunes store.
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