The iPhone 12, much like every Apple smartphone since 2017’s iPhone X, has just one method of biometric authentication: Face ID. However, as a result of the pandemic sweeping the globe, the majority of us are now wearing masks whenever we leave the house, which has been confounding our smartphones’ built-in facial recognition software. And, despite inbound vaccines, it will be some time before as a society we are mask-free, and even then there is no guarantee we will return to such a culture post Covid.

Face ID uses a TrueDepth camera and infrared technology to project and analyse over 30,000 invisible dots to create a depth map of your face and to study the features around the eye, nose, mouth and ears. Apple’s neural engine transforms the depth map and infrared image into a mathematical representation and compares that representation with the enrolled facial data.

While, according to Apple, “Face ID automatically adapts to changes in your appearance, such as wearing make-up or growing facial hair”, mask-wearing has made the feature redundant.
Although the company has made changes to the system so that your iPhone will now prompt you to enter your passcode if it detects you’re wearing a mask, tasks such as unlocking your smartphone and paying for your shopping using Apple Wallet have become frustrating. The other option is to pull your mask down every time you need to use your phone, but that's neither hygienic nor practical.

It isn’t just Face ID that has been rendered useless as a result of widespread maks-wearing; ongoing testing by the US National Institue of Standards and Technology (NIST) show the efficacy of facial recognition algorithms used in everything from Customs systems and surveillance cameras has declined as a result.

Many are trying to solve this problem. In April, for example, researchers posted an image dataset to GitHub featuring 1,200 pictures culled from Instagram selfies. They tagged the images to identify people wearing medical masks, non-medical masks or no mask to support creative solutions for Covid-challenged facial recognition problems.

Separately, researchers at Wuhan University in China compiled and posted to GitHub a larger dataset that consists of 5,000 cleaned and labelled images of masked faces of 525 different individuals, along with images of 90,000 unmasked faces, in order to train future facial recognition algorithms.

However, it’s unlikely the facial recognition technology we use on our smartphones will be able to adapt – not unless we’re willing to compromise on both performance and our personal security.
“Facial recognition algorithms can be trained using data from individuals wearing masks," says Huseyin Atakan Varol, professor of Nazarbayev University School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, and founding director of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence. However, due to the increased occlusion of the facial features by the mask, the performance of the face recognition would be worse than the facial recognition conducted with a full set of facial features.

Andrew Bud, founder and CEO at iProov, adds: “It's much harder to assure the genuine presence of somebody wearing a mask because so much information about the face is hidden. A mask has no definable characteristics – it hides so much information that's important for the assurance that this is a genuine person.”

Bud doesn’t think, in future iPhones, this will be a problem “because we're not going to be wearing masks for prolonged periods,” while Ryan Gosling, commercial director at Callsign, suggests phone makers should implement mobile behavioural biometrics as a way to bypass the problem.

“It uses gestures to positively identify a user – such as a swipe across the screen or entering in a One Time Passcode (OTP) – and it can be as passive or interactive as required,” he says. “The user’s behaviour creates a unique profile and can be used to positively identify them in future.

“This is an ideal workaround or replacement for facial biometrics, as behavioural biometrics only requires the user to have their hand available to swipe across their mobile screen or enter an OTP to authenticate themselves.”

There’s a simpler solution, of course: bring back Touch ID. Apple has already shown us it’s capable of doing so without bringing back the home button, as the recently announced iPad Air features Touch ID mapped to its power button. What’s more, under-screen fingerprint recognition technology is now commonplace, featuring on the latest devices from OnePlus and Samsung.

It’s likely the re-implementation of Touch ID simply wasn’t possible with the iPhone 12. Apple typically finalised the design of its next-generation devices 12 to 18 months before they head to production, and with the pandemic not even a year old at the time, it’s unlikely the company had the window to make such as drastic change.
But with the iPhone 13 the company has no excuse. While some people think otherwise, mask-wearing is likely here to stay for the foreseeable future, and technology should be making our lives more convenient, not less.


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The new year will bring some earlier-than-normal goodies from Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant has sent out invites for its first Unpacked of 2021, which will take place at 7 a.m. PT on Jan. 14 -- about a month earlier than last year and on the final day of CES. It touted "Welcome to the Everyday Epic" as the theme for the event, where the latest version of its Galaxy S smartphone is expected to make its debut.

"Over the past year, mobile technology has taken center stage in everyday life as people are working remotely and spending more time at home," Samsung said. "The accelerated transition to a mobile-first world brings with it the need for devices that can transform everyday life into an extraordinary experience."

Samsung likely will have three different models of the flagship phone: the 6.2-inch S21, the 6.7-inch S21 Plus and the 6.8-inch S21 Ultra. The devices are expected to look largely the same but have bigger camera modules, boosting their photo and video capabilities.

The company may also discontinue its Galaxy Note line this year and replace it with S Pen support on its Galaxy S21 Ultra. Early renders don't show a visible location for a stylus, which may mean it has to be housed separately from the phone when not in use. On Samsung's popular -- but niche -- Note lineup, the stylus slides into the device for storage.

Samsung will also have a press conference at CES on Jan. 11. On that event, it's expected to focus on its TV and home appliance businesses, as it's done in past years. Unpacked will be the last day of CES.

A Jan. 14 date for Unpacked comes earlier than normal for Samsung. In the past, the company has typically unveiled its newest flagship phone in February, either slightly before or during the Mobile World Congress trade show, and then released the device in March or even April.

Samsung announced last year's Galaxy S20 lineup and Galaxy Z Flip foldable on Feb. 11 in what was one of the tech industry's last in-person events before the novel coronavirus pandemic forced borders to close and governments to issue stay-at-home orders. The Galaxy S20 devices, all of which came with 5G, began preorders Feb. 21 and hit stores on March 6.

The day after Unpacked, organizers canceled the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, which was slated for later in February. At that time, COVID-19 had infected more than 42,000 people and claimed more than 1,000 lives. That number has soared to about 85 million infections and about 1.8 million deaths, as the world grapples with a crippling new wave of the virus.

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Huawei just announced two new mid-range phones - the Enjoy 20 Plus 5G and the Enjoy 20. The Plus version looks a lot like the Mate 30 Pro from the back while the front adopts a clean, cutout-less design boasting 92% screen-to-body ratio. The vanilla Enjoy 20, on the other hand, has a waterdrop notch and a camera island similar to that of the iPhone 11-series.

Huawei Enjoy 20 Plus 5G

The handset comes with a tall 20:9 IPS LCD panel with 1080 x 2400px resolution in a 6.63-inch diagonal. It supports 90Hz refresh rate and the 16MP f/2.0 front camera is hidden inside an elevating mechanism.

One of MediaTek's new mid-range 5G chipset sits behind the wheel - Dimensity 720 paired with either 6 or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM while storage is 128GB with optional expansion via Huawei's NMcards by up to 256GB.

The camera setup on the back consists of a 48MP main unit with f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP F/2.4 ultrawide unit and a dedicated 2MP macro shooter with f/2.4 aperture.

A 4,200 mAh battery powers it all supporting 40W fast charging. The handset ships with Huawei's latest EMUI 10.1 based on Android 10. I

It's also worth noting that there's a 3.5mm audio jack on board as well as a fingerprint reader on the side of the phone.

The Enjoy 20 Plus 5G is offered in Black, Gradient Blue, Forest Green and Pink with prices starting from CNY 2,299 ($335) for the 6GB model and asks CNY 200 ($30) more for the 8GB iteration.

Huawei Enjoy 20 5G

The vanilla version of the phone sports a similarly-sized 6.6-inch IPS LCD panel but of lower HD+ (720 x 1600px) resolution and standard 60Hz refresh rate. However, the same Dimensity 720 can be found under the hood bundled with 4 and 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage. Interestingly enough, this one has a standard microSD card slot and it supports up to 512GB.

In the camera department, the Enjoy 20 5G coffers a 13MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture, 5MP ultrawide-angle snapper with f/2.2 aperture and the same 2MP macro camera with 4cm fixed focus distance. The notch on the front accommodates an 8MP f/2.0 camera.

The battery on the vanilla variant of the phone is bigger - 5,000 mAh, but only supports 10W charging. The same side-mounted fingerprint reader is used for unlocking the device.

The Enjoy 20 5G comes in the same Black, Gold, Green and Pink colors. The 4GB configuration starts at CNY 1,699 ($250) while the 6GB option sells for CNY 1,899 ($280).

Both phones are available for pre-order while actual sales start from September 10. No plans about global rollout have been disclosed at this point.

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The most recent cumulative update for Windows 10 May 2019 Update, or version 1903, also includes a fix for a DPC latency spike issue, according to Microsoft itself.

While the changelog does not reveal such an improvement, Pete Brown, member of the Windows PAX team at Microsoft, said on Twitter that this latest cumulative update refines the audio performance on Windows 10 by resolving the latency error.

“The Windows 10 1903 DPC latency spike issue (causing audio glitches on some PCs) is fixed in KB4505903. You should see that come through Windows Update normally, shortly. If in a hurry, you can grab the stand-alone installer,” he said, pointing users to the Microsoft Update Catalog page to download the cumulative update.

Windows 10 cumulative update KB4505903 increases the OS build number to 18362.267 on devices where Windows 10 May 2019 Update installed.

It can be downloaded from Windows Update with a manual check for updates or from the Microsoft Update Catalog page linked above.
"Microsoft Edge changes"

KB4505903 is also believed to be testing a new behavior that Microsoft could use in the future on all Windows 10 devices to replace the existing Microsoft Edge browser.

Microsoft is moving Edge browser to the Chromium engine, and testing versions are already available for download on Windows 7, 8.1, 10, and macOS. After installing this cumulative update on a Windows 10 device, the existing version of Microsoft Edge appears to be removed from the Start menu and the search results page, albeit it continues to be available on the system.

This change, however, isn’t yet enabled for all users on Windows 10, but only for a limited set, most likely as Microsoft is still experimenting with this idea.

The new browser doesn’t have an ETA just yet, but it could replace the current version of Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 as the new default in the spring of 2020.

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