The iPhone 12 Pro device is said to make use of the very new lidar sensor that is located on the back of the said phone in order to detect just how close other people are from the user. Apple has recently named this feature the People Detection.
The use or Lidar and its role in this feature
Lidar is a particular type of depth sensor that will help with augmented reality apps and services working as the eyes of different self-driving cars. As of now, Apple is currently trying to apply this new accessibility in a crowning effort to help those people suffering from vision problems to be able to navigate better.
According to an article by CNET, the People Detection is said to be able to tell a particular person's distance from the given user within either feet or meters, and is said to work for up to a total of 15ft or 5 meters away. Anyone within the iPhone 12 Pro's own wide-angle camera view will be detected by the said feature.
It was also stated that if there are a significant number of people nearby, the People Detection will be able to give the actual distance from the person that is closest to the said iPhone user. The said technology will be rolling out as part of the upcoming iOS 14.2 over the few coming weeks. Apple, however, has already released a particular beta version of the known software to be available only for developers this Friday. Lidar was better explained by a blog by Halide.
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Where will the technology be available and up to what extent
This particular technology is said to make use of the newly improved lidar scanner that is built into the said camera array of both the iPhone 12 Pro as well as the iPhone Pro Max. It is also part of the newest iPad Pro and could also come to other different devices some time in the future. This particular scanner is just a tiny black dot located near the whole camera lens somewhere on the back of the newly released highest-end iPhones.
The People Detection, however, can't work on the older iPhones like the iPhone 12, the iPhone 12 Mini, or even the recent iPad Air. All of these devices won't come along with built-in lidar scanners, which is what this particular sensing technology is built around.
The People Detection feature is said to use Apple's ARKit People Occlusion feature in order to detect if there is actually someone around the camera's own field of view and also help estimate just how far away the actual person is. The said lidar scanner also makes the estimate a bit more accurate. It works by sending out a short burst of light around in order to measure just how long it takes for the light to be able to return to the lidar scanner. The feature, however, does not work in either dark or certain low light environments as of the moment.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
