Apple is planning to upgrade its Face ID feature for upcoming iPhones and has acquired patents from Lighthouse, a company that makes security cameras, for this purpose.
The patents Apple will be working on largely involve vision-based AI technology that would scan and recognize faces. Apple could use Lighthouse's patents to add the ability for more than one face to unlock a device using Face ID to its upcoming iPhone models.
Facial recognition (also known as Face ID), first introduced in the iPhone X, uses a TrueDepth camera system, which consists of a dot projector, an infrared camera, and a flood illuminator. Face ID displays over 30,000 IR dots. The IR image and dot pattern are fed through neural networks to create a mathematical model of your face and compare the data to confirm the match, while adjusting for physical changes in appearance over time.
If you've read about Lighthouse's patents, the company is working on almost the same technology that Apple uses for Face ID on the iPhone XS and XR. So, it's possible that Apple could use Lighthouse's technology to further enhance Face ID on its devices. Or, Apple could use Lighthouse's research to identify more than one authorized user to add to Face ID on a single device.
While Apple is constantly acquiring companies to improve its ecosystem, with the acquisition of Lighthouse, it may be aiming to increase its efforts to defend itself from lawsuits, given the similarity between Face ID and Lighthouse's patents.
In 2019, Apple's iPhones are expected to retain the same size and appearance as seen in 2018's iPhone XS18 and iPhone XR. This means that three iPhones will be released in 2019 with screen sizes of 6.5 inches, 5.8 inches, and 6.1 inches.
Other new features that Apple could bring include higher band connectivity, reverse charging, larger batteries, and a triple camera system.
