When announcing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm announced the feature to permanently activate the selfie camera to unlock the screen without touching it.
Small bubble penetrates the screen of the Galaxy S21 // Source: Arnaud Gelineau – Frandroid
This week, Qualcomm is organizing the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, a major annual gathering during which the equipment manufacturer unveils its next generation of chips. This year, this was an opportunity for the company to introduce a new SoC for smartphones. Snapdragon 8 first generation. If you have already looked a lot at its properties or Manufacturers that have announced that they will equip it, there was one function that has not been disclosed yet, which is: The camera is always on.
In addition to three chipsets dedicated to classic image processing, for both photos and videos, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will also integrate a fourth ISP, integrated directly into the Sensing Hub chip, a part of the SoC dedicated to AI and especially energy efficiency. In fact, the fourth ISP will have a very specific role, as it will allow to permanently activate the selfie camera to search and identify your face.
In concrete terms, Qualcomm Product Manager Judd Heep noted that this ISP will allow the front camera to always be awake, whether the smartphone is on with the screen or not, whether it is turned off or not:
The selfie camera will always securely look for your face, even if you don’t touch it or lift it to wake it up. Imagine waking up your phone at any time with a single glance, whether you’re sitting at your desk or standing in front of your kitchen counter, even if your hands are up. This is now possible with the Snapdragon 8 with the new camera permanently activated.
Uses designed to protect your data
Thus, the idea of this new feature is to allow you to wake the smartphone when your face is in front of the selfie camera whatever the circumstances, without having to press the screen or the lock button as it were. . However, Qualcomm does not intend to stop there, and Good Heap indicated that the American company has several projects under development in this aspect:
So far, the smartphone stops looking for your face as soon as you unlock it. But with the camera always on, she’ll be able to look for your face all the time. This way, if you are not in front of your phone, it will be locked. If someone takes it from you, it will be closed. He may even react to your presence if someone else arrives. If someone looks over your shoulder, they can turn off the screen, delete personal content, or block your phone. In this way, we will protect your privacy. Or sometimes you want to share what you’re watching, but only what’s currently on screen. If someone is looking at your screen with you, they can always ask your device to hide notifications and popups.
The idea is to strive to protect users’ data as much as possible… by activating a camera that’s constantly pointing at your face. A paradox that does not escape Qualcomm, who reassured him during his conference: “You don’t have to worry about privacy. Data from the camera always never leaves Sensig’s secure center when you’re looking for faces”.
a ‘Privacy nightmare’
On the other hand, the American website the edge It is more significant for this feature, which qualifies it as ‘Privacy nightmare’ :
For those of us who understand how modern technology is used to invade our privacy, a smartphone camera that constantly records images, even when not in use, is a terrifying sight and the cost of it. Our privacy far outweighs any potential benefit of convenience.
As The Verge reminds us, many manufacturers offer similar features as Google with Nest Hub Max Or manufacturers of security cameras, but these devices are stationary and are not intended to be taken with you anywhere. Above all, in recent years, several security breaches have shown that these cameras can be hacked. It’s annoying on a smartphone in general. It would be more than that on a smartphone filming you all the time.
As always with innovations from Qualcomm’s SoCs, it’s worth noting that this is a functionality available to smartphone manufacturers that will power their devices with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – we’re particularly considering xiaomiAnd OPPO And real me. There is no indication that it will be used by manufacturers and integrated directly into their software.
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