Microsoft Could Bring Windows Hello To Android, iPhone

Microsoft may have plans to bring Windows Hello, one of the headline features of Microsoft's current operating system, to Android and iOS. Windows Hello is a feature that lets people unlock their PC with fingerprint, face, or iris. Paul Thurrott reports: With Windows 10 version 1607, Microsoft has expanded the Windows Hello authentication technologies to include support for companion devices. That we knew. But those companion devices, surprisingly, will include both Android and iPhone handsets. The question is whether those solutions will ever be made available to consumers.[...] On a Ignite 2016 session called Expand Windows Hello Family to companion devices and browser, Microsoft outlined some ideas around this. "When you think about a user and the kind of devices they carry with them," Microsoft senior program manager lead Anoosh Saboori said during the session, "they normally have the phone in their pocket, they [might] have some kind of wearable on their arm, some of them might have the security fobs given to them by their company, and many of us carry a badge with us that is used to gain access to different physical locations. We wanted to leverage these devices as a way to knowing the user."

Translate Jargon to English

[sehlat]

Original: We wanted to leverage these devices as a way to knowing the user.

Translation: We wanted to have more ways to gather data we can sell to advertisers and pass along to the National Surveillance Agency.

try { that }

[hcs_$reboot]

try { new Feature(); } catch (MS) { abort(); }

Re:

[MightyMartian]

The Jobs Reality Distortion Field is still holding.

Re:

[Kjella]

I was really pissed off at having to offer up my finger prints in order to enter the USA recently. Such things used to be demanded only of criminals. Are we all criminals now? It's degrading and insulting. Besides being a great way for these guys to track your every move.

There's a lot of other times and places I'd complain but a border check at the actual border is not one of them. They're the ones with the most reason to verify that your passport is genuine and that you are in fact the person the passport belongs to. I do find it somewhat naughty that they keep it and don't simply register that the fingerprints have been verified and match, but I suppose they don't have jurisdiction to demand that other countries translate passport numbers to fingerprints later like say af

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Just finger prints? At some airports I travelled through, they did iris scanning too.

Hello hell.

[wwalker]

Why would I need Windows Hell on my... Oh, sorry, didn't see the "o" at the end there... (yes, I'm a karma whore)

Attention Microsoft

[Nunya666]

Please keep your hands off my Android!

Re:

[unixisc]

Agree, but would add some more suggestions. How about getting some really useful stuff to their own platform - Windows 10 Mobile? In particular, put in something like FaceTime and Google Duo (no, Skype ain't it), which can communicate w/ iPhone FaceTime or Android Duo users w/o requiring the latter to download the app?

Also, I'd really like them to come up w/ a VOIP app for Windows Mobile - one like Vonage or 8x8.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

(yeah I know they're the devil and all that, so don't flame me) Personally, I welcome the competition, if it forces Google and Apple to lift their game.

MS apps on my phone: Outlook. Google have had 3 goes at building an email app and they all suck.

Windows Hello?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Windows Hello? But, when do I get my Windows Hello Kitty?

Hoping for something different...

[Fire_Wraith]

Windows Hello? I was sort of looking more for "Windows Goodbye."

Just what we need

[OneHundredAndTen]

Microsoft garbage in our phones. Following a time-honored tradition, consider yourself middle-fingered, Microsoft.

It's just a path to a NSA backdoor...

[squash_me_quickly]

The anti Microsoft feelings in me made me immediately assume ulterior/negative motives :(

ps. just so you all know... autoexec.bat and config.sys made me hate Microsoft a long, long time before I used Linux!

Microsoft patented Android

[khz6955]

Will Microsoft be threatening to sue Microsoft for using its patented technology in Android.

Here's Why Nokia Is About To Get More Money Out Of Its Patents [fortune.com]

Headline features

[thegarbz]

What the hell is Hello? And how headline is a feature of the OS that I've never once used despite having the OS in question from day 1?

Re:

[jrumney]

It's a feature where your PC unlocks when you look at it. But apparently the facial recognition was too good, so now Microsoft want to open a vulnerability where you can unlock a stolen PC by phoning the owner and thus tricking them into looking at their phone. This will bring the feature down to Microsoft's usual level of security.

Re:

[rtb61]

So if I bend over and point the phone at the other end of my digestive anatomy, will M$ recognise that as they insert digital the probe.

No thank you

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

No, no no no. DO. NOT. WANT.

Don't pollute the Android and Apple ecosystems with your user-hostile crap.

I neither want nor need Microsoft to make competing phones worse.