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Comment by ebg13 | Hacker News Reader

> The method we developed images the eye multiple times to see whether it’s actually responding to changes in brightness

This is new? In 2019? Really? I find that so hard to believe.

> the process takes about 3 seconds

WHAAAAT? WHY?

> For comparison, even iris-recognition systems that require just one snapshot usually take about that much time to make an identification.

I feel like Robin Williams fresh out of Jumanji yelling "WHAT YEAR IS IT?"

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I was told once by some startup founders that there are iris scanning cameras that can acquire 50 irises per minute from a distance. I don't know if that is true, or what the resolution and accuracy would be, but nothing about that seems physically impossible to me.

Apparently pupils don't adjust terribly quickly:

"Briefly, it was found that when light is flashed on a normal eye that is accommodated for the dark, there occurs a latent period of 0.1875 second before the pupil begins to contract. Then there follows a rapid primary contraction for 0.4365 second at the rate of 5.48 mm. per second. This is succeeded by a secondary contraction of 0.3125 second at the slower rate of 1.34 mm. per second"

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/286369

Doesn't explain 3 seconds, but perhaps 1 second or so.

Well, the three times there make about a second for one light-change. So let's say it makes two light-changes, to be sure, for three images (it does say "multiple images", not "two"). That's two seconds, and then say there's another second for processing. Not too unreasonable, especially if (as it says) single-image systems also take about three seconds overall.

That makes perfect sense to me.

A possibility would be that you might want to make multiple changes in light level at random intervals to make it harder for e.g, a video being presented to the camera that matches the input it would expect.

That would make sense, certainly what I would call a further stage of development and currently they are doing viability and a basic level of operation. So that would seem like a logical progression.

Coz they could add a brainwave scanner that measures the reaction to the input of the eye, or have a higher resolution camera that measures blood flow being active in the eye. Many avenues of addressing this. But as a previous comment mentioned - generally easier to have a physical person next to the iris. After all, not like there is a shortage of humans to do jobs in the World today.

The LG iris scanner that I've used in the past had a small flickering red LED between your eyes. I'm not sure if it was just something to focus on or if the light was meant to make your pupils dilate slightly. The one I used was probably nearly 10 years old. The newer scanner out there look to be a lot faster and more automatic.

>This is new? In 2019? Really? I find that so hard to believe.

Yeah, sure, why? Who needs that level of security? Governments that can already afford to pay someone to stand by that door if it's so important?

But it is pretty expensive, if you have many doors to protect and also those humans sometimes turn out as unreliable .. so you need to pay people to check on them, etc.

(I worked briefly in security ... well, humans are really unreliable)

Make something faster, get rich :-)

Yeah that sounds terrible. It would be much better to detect saccades and/or blinks.

You could replicate that with an eyeball mounted on gimbals.

Sure, you could replicate anything given enough budget. It wouldn't be trivial, as saccades and blinks are among the fastest motions made by the human body.

>Sure, you could replicate anything given enough budget

You just killed a person and extracted their eyes to use to open some door. I think you have the budget for something that you can make for $200 with Lego Technic...

If you're bad enough to kill a person with the desired eyeball, you might as well unlock the door with them before you kill, with a few threats and promises. (pretty ugly thought)

Doesn't work in e.g a lock chamber, which would ensure only one person is in it (which has it's own issues, e.g. weighting is more complicated than it looks).

>with a few threats and promises

There have been people tortured to death who never gave up important secrets, so that might not be an option...

The saccades has properties that also differ per person.

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