Meet Samsung’s latest “innovation”: A smartphone fingerprint scanner

Samsung is considering adding fingerprint recognition to its smartphones by the end of the year, after Apple unveiled the feature on its iPhone 5S smartphone.

Citing an industry insider, the Korea IT News reports Samsung is looking to finish development of the feature by the end of this year in the hopes of including it in a forthcoming smartphone.

Samsung is working with companies including CrucialTec and Parton on the technology.

It had examined the possibility of including fingerprint recognition on the Galaxy Note 3. However, the feature was eliminated at the last minute after business partner US Validity Chip failed to pass a reliability test.

Samsung is also wary of looking like an imitator by placing its fingerprint scanner on its home button as Apple have done, although placing the scanner on the side or back would pose usability issues for users.

“It is not technologically easy to put the fingerprint recognition function on the side of the terminal because of the size of the finger,” a fingerprint recognition industry official says.

“Be that as it may, putting it in the same place as competitive products cannot but smack of imitation.”