According to a new report Monday from the Korea Herald, those 3D sensors said to be coming to iPhone 8 will be capable of scanning a user's face within the millionths of a second.
iPhone 8 is expected to use a laser transmitter and receiver for advanced facial recognition, 3D mapping, augmented reality and other features. A Barrons report, citing analyst Jun Zhang with Rosenblatt Securities, suggests iPhone 8's 3D sensing module is ready for mass production.
The analyst believes that a company called Viavi Solutions will build 150 million optical filter units for Apple in 2018. He said 3D sensing could be used for facial recognition on iPhone 8, potentially supporting simple gesture recognition in the front.
Furthermore, a 3D sensor for the rear camera should improve depth-of-field photography.
As we previously reported, other suppliers of 3D-sensing modules for iPhone 8 are said to include Largan, Lumentum and Finisar. In the analyst's view, the adoption curve could ramp once the cost of 3D-sensing modules lowers to $10 per piece.
Viavi is one of the 3D-sensing market leaders.
iPhone 8 mockup via iDropNews.
Taiwanese vendor Largan Precision, which supplies lenses for the dual-camera iPhone 7 Plus, recently confirmed it would start shipping facial recognition 3D sensors in the second half of this year, in time for iPhone 8.
The company is currently in the process of expanding production capacities. They'll be hiring a cool 4,500 workers for its new production facility, or nearly double its current workforce. Apple's OLED-based iPhone 8 is said to use 3D sensors to capture a user's face and iris, even in low-light conditions.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that a next-generation FaceTime camera on iPhone 8 would augment standard RGB sensors with infrared transmitting/receiving modules and include a bespoke 1.4-megapixel sensor capable of detecting changes in light signals.
The next-generation camera would apparently use lasers invisible to the human eye for advanced features such as 3D selfies, accurate depth mapping, 3D modeling and more.
iPhone 8's image sensors should be built by Sony, like before.
Largan CEO Adam Lin said in a press conference this week after the company's annual general meeting, as reported by Nikkei, that they will have lenses for a 3D-sensing module “used in a smartphone ready to ship in the second half this year”.
No phone vendor has officially announced a device with 3D lenses, leaving only iPhone 8 as the most likely phone with 3D lenses that'll be ready to ship in the second half of 2017.
Jeff Pu, an analyst at Yuanta Investment Consulting, estimates that Largan will supply 90 percent of rear-camera lenses for 2017 iPhones, around half of the 3D-sensing lenses and up to one-third of the front camera lenses. Foxconn-controlled Genius Electronics Optical and Japan's Kantatsu are said to compete for the rest of the iPhone 8 orders.
Image: iPhone 7 Plus dual-camera system with Largan-made lenses.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that iPhone 8's front-facing camera would take advantage of a new sensor for “revolutionary” features such as augmented reality applications, advanced facial recognition, 3D selfies, 3D object scanning/modeling and more. Tuesday, Barron's noted that Apple may have contracted a company called Himax Technologies to build the rumored sensor for Apple's OLED-based iPhone 8.
Franco-Italian company STMicroelectronics used to be the sole supplier of accelerometers, gyroscopes and motion sensors for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices before Apple started dual-sourcing these microscopic components from both STMicroelectronics and Bosch Sensortec.
According to a report Wednesday by French blog iGeneration, the Cupertino company has tapped STMicroelectronics as a supplier for iPhone 8's 3D camera sensor that should support exciting capabilities such as 3D sensing and mapping, 3D selfies, augmented reality features, advanced facial recognition and more.
A future iPhone could enhance the iPhone 7 Plus's depth-of-field Portrait photography mode with all-new “3D photographing” features, according to a new report Thursday from The Korea Economic Daily. The outlet is reporting that the Cupertino firm has teamed up with LG Innotek on a next-generation dual-camera module with 3D photography features, likely to be used in select 2017 iPhone models.
Virtual reality is a new tech buzzword and key players are taking notice, with Samsung Display showing off a cutting-edge smartphone display technology at the Display Week conference in San Francisco last week. The tech promises to let people enjoy 3D content without needing any special glasses.
You knew about three-dimensional buildings and landmarks on Apple Maps—a feature they're calling Flyover mode. But did you know that Apple's mapping service includes virtual tours of more than a hundred major metropolises worldwide? If not, that's because Apple hasn't exactly gone to great lengths to advertise it front and center in the Maps interface.
These virtual tours are basically auto-playing animations in Flyover mode, complete with three-dimensional buildings, terrain and landmarks. They're quite useful if you're visiting a city for the first time, though virtual tourists who want a quick overview of a major city will also find them fun and entertaining.
Here's how you can explore and enjoy 3D Flyover Tours on Apple Maps for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac.
At its annual developers conference, the F8, which kicked off yesterday, the social networking giant Facebook announced an open-source spherical camera rig design which can shoot 360-degree video in 3D. Dubbed the Facebook Surround 360, the design consists of as many as fourteen wide-angle cameras bolted onto the horizontal ring.
There's also a fish-eye camera on top and two on the bottom for a total of seventeen cameras that are synced with a global shutter mechanism. The accompanying software stitches the individual videos together into one seamless 360-degree footage.
3D printing is the wave of the future, and soon, you'll be able to do it right from your smartphone, whether it's an iPhone, Windows phone, or Android phone.
OLO 3D has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a super affordable 3D printer for your smartphone starting at $99, and within just a week, the campaign has gone viral and user response for the idea has excelled at an incredible rate. Out of the $80,000 goal, the campaign has already raised well over $1,100,000 as of this writing.
So how does it work?
Your brand spanking new Apple TV does a lot of nice things pretty well, and some really cool ones Apple hasn't even mentioned officially.
As first discovered by developer Steve Stroughton-Smith, the set-top box can actually render stereoscopic 3D content provided an app has implemented the functionality and the customer owns a 3D-enabled TV set to enjoy it on.
Specifically, he has identified stereoscopic 3D support within Pangea Software’s Bugdom 2, which has been refreshed in the App Store to work on the new Apple TV.
Apple on Tuesday added 20 new locations to the 3D Flyover feature in its iOS and OS X Maps applications. The new spots include cities and landmarks in the US, Japan, Italy, Spain and France.
First introduced when Apple Maps launched in 2012, the Flyover feature allows users to take interactive, three-demensional virtual tours of various points of interest from around the world.