© Reuters/Roselle Chen Google launches new Pixel 7 phones and other devices in New York .Paresh Dev
(Reuters) - Facial recognition returned to new Google Pixel phones on Thursday after a brief hiatus due to cost and performance concerns, said three former employees of Alphabet Inc's unit familiar with the effort.
The new Pixel 7's features aren't quite as good as Apple Inc's Face ID unlock method, as they don't work in low light and are more prone to blurring. In addition, Google has stated that it is not secure enough to access apps or make payments.
The comeback comes after Google was silent about launching a facial recognition product, partly because of questions about its effectiveness on dark skin. The company has taken the time to review its approach to facial recognition training and testing, the source said, starting with the previous Pixel, which debuted in 2019.
Google declined to comment on some questions about the story during the presentation. In general, he said. "With an advanced machine learning model for facial recognition, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro support Face Unlock, but we did it a little differently." He added: "We got good facial accuracy with the front camera."
© Reuters/Roselle Chen Google launches new Pixel 7 phones and other devices in New York .Google's push for face unlock on Android phones has been going on for at least a decade, sources say, but Apple made more of a push when it introduced Face ID in September 2017.
In the past, Google has struggled to come up with systems that are fast and efficient, or brave enough to unlock someone's phone with a photo or fancy dress, one of the sources said. Engineers would smile or nod to counter the fakeness, as if someone was "alive," but that was boring and slow, the source said.
Another source says that after Apple Face ID introduced a depth sensor and infrared camera called TrueDepth to identify your face, Google executives implemented the same technology. The Google Pixel 4 2019 has an infrared depth setting called uDepth.
According to Google, it performs well, including in the dark, with no more than a 1 in 50,000 chance of unauthorized people unlocking the phone.
But the equipment is expensive. And when Apple sells 240 million iPhones a year, Google surpasses the multi-billion mark, preventing Apple from buying parts at huge discounts.
Google lowered the price of the Pixel 5 uDepth in 2020, according to sources.
The disclosure gave Google a reason to remove face masks from last year's Pixel 6 and more research time, the two people said.
The front aperture in the new phones is based on the traditional front camera. However, unlike the previous system, it can not safely open applications and payments, according to Google, the possibility of hacking, for example when taking photos of users, is more than 20%, which is more than 7% required. do It is considered very reliable.
Low light and sunglasses can also cause problems, Google said, adding that fingerprint unlocking would be an option.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Kenneth Lee and Leslie Adler)