Israeli tech firm RealFace may be the final missing ingredient to introduce facial recognition to the next iPhone. The iPhone 8 (if at all that is the name of the next iPhone) is expected to have more than just a fingerprint sensor to recognise you – it might now want to first see your face before it lets you use your phone. This facial recognition capacity, which has been used in the MacBook before, has been long envisioned in the iPhone too. But with rumors spreading about Apple’s alleged acquisition of Israeli Tech Firm RealFace, it might finally seem to be a much closer to becoming a reality.
Based out of Tel Aviv, RealFace has previously seen some popularity with its application, called Pickeez, that was essentially devoted towards picking the best photo from a group of images. However, ever since the news of the acquisition has been heard, it has also been noticed that the website of RealFace is down and Pickeez seems not to be functioning.
Claims that the company is now under the flag of Apple were also made by one of the Israeli sites, the Calcalist, that mentioned that the deal between RealFace and Apple was reportedly closed off at millions of dollars, but the specifics are currently still at large. This secretive purchase is of course, not the first one. The Cupertino giant has made similar purchases before to boost its own productivity, and product value. A notable example of this may be the acquisition of Emotient, a company that was a start up firm dedicated to developing Artificial Intelligence capable of reading human facial expressions and mentioning the emotion they were experiencing. This seems to be another link pointing to Apple’s endeavour towards making the dream of facial recognition in iPhones possible.
So far, little is known about the iPhone 8 and when it is going to be launched but something big may be cooking in Apple’s kitchen and it is definitely going to be one to watch out for.