Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note 7 with the much anticipated iris recognition feature that had been fuelling rampant speculation in tech media in recent months.The Galaxy Note 7 follows only the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL in terms of major iris recognition deployments on mass market smartphones.However, perhaps crucially it is the first to have both an iris camera and a fingerprint reader.Similar to the Lumia, the smartphone uses an IR camera module in combination with a proximity sensor to recognise when its owner is holding the phone up to his or her face (from 25 to 35 centimeters, or about a foot away).Early reviews of the iris recognition have been very positive:”Blazing fast is truly an understatement. It's really mind blowing. The second you swipe up on the lock screen, the device instantly unlocks”, writes a reviewer from sammobile.com”The more curious amongst us are probably wondering if you could unlock the device using a photograph of an iris. The simple answer is no. The firm has developed an innovative piece of technology that's designed to detect a natural glare of light that's only present in a living eye, making it impossible to unlock the handset with a 3D render of an eyeball, let alone a 2D image.”The launch comes after the tech rumour mill erupted further last week when East Asian media reported that the next iPhone would also boast an iris recognition camera – it is unclear if this would spell the end of Touch ID.Dr. Asem Othman, Biometric Scientist at Hoyos Labs, has the increasing popularity of iris on smartphones is down to security and convenience.”Iris recognition systems are gaining interest because the iris's rich texture offers a strong biometric cue for recognizing individuals. Among the different existing biometric traits, iris has been traditionally regarded as one of the most reliable and accurate.ߪ.The iris is a thin, colored circular structure in the eye located just behind the cornea and in front of the lens, and it is responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupil and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. Therefore, iris is the only internal organ readily visible from the outside. Thus, unlike fingerprints, capturing iris biometric is like taking a picture and facial expressions and aging effects cannot easily alter its pattern.”He added that Iris recognition is usually based on near infrared (NIR) lighting and sensors. This is because the texture of dark-colored irides are not easily discernible in the Visible spectrum. NIR lighting can penetrate the iris's surface and reveal the intricate texture details that are present, even in dark-colored irides.NIR images of the iris's anterior surface exhibit complex patterns, and iris recognition systems use these complex patterns to compare two iris images and generate a match score that reflects their degree of similarity or dissimilarity.

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