Apple has always had a passion for innovation, and it has always managed to come up with something revolutionary, one way or another. Now, the company is reportedly showing interest in building secure, advanced face recognition technology that would create three-dimensional models using two-dimensional images. A person's face, for instance, would have far greater accuracy rendered in 3-D.

The concept was explained in a new patent application called "3D Object Recognition," uncovered this week by AppleInsider. The patent application stems from an earlier patent filing by Swedish company Polar Rose, which Apple acquired in 2010 for $29 million. As Polar Rose filed the patent application before the acquisition, parts of the technology are not as consumer-oriented as Apple would likely intend. The filing details potential government security issues, such as verifying whether the picture on someone's passport or other ID card matches the owner's face, or automatically identifying someone's face from a live video, without their knowledge.

Innovation

Face recognition is not an entirely new thing for Apple. Along with the launch of the iPhone 4S last year, the company also introduced face detection when capturing still images. With Apple's technology, the iPhone 4S can detect up to 10 faces in a photo. Apple has also offered facial recognition in iPhoto, and for years now users can match a name to a face in pictures, thus enabling the system to further recognize them automatically in other photos.

However, the new patent application published this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicates that Apple could go far beyond simple face detection in still images. By taking a two-dimensional image of a person from a photo or a video and rendering it in 3-D, the company could build on the security features in Macs or iOS devices. The technology would allow for a more accurate identification of an individual person, thus increasing the level of security.

Google has already implemented a "Face Unlock" feature with its Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich released last October. Its technology, however, can be easily tricked by holding the picture of the authorized person in front of the device, without actually having that person physically present.

More Accurate Identification

Meanwhile, according to Apple's filing, the technology from Polar Rose provides a more accurate method of identifying a person's face by rendering it in 3‑D. To set up a facial recognition system, users could use pictures or video from multiple angles, thus providing a more accurate render of their face. When trying to identify an individual user, the system would refer to the original 3-D image as the source; it could then take a 2-D image of the person, render it in 3-D, and compare it to the original model.

The application goes beyond face detection, and details methods for identifying a range of other features such as the entire human body, blood vessels, inner organs, and even tumors. Furthermore, the application also mentions other items such as vehicles, aircrafts, military object, and ships.

Apple first filed the application with the USPTO in November 2011, but it was not made public until this week. The proposed technology is credited to Polar Rose' Jan Eric Solem and Fredrik Kahl.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Dave Clark)