Apple iPhone 5

Apple as usual has made a business decision that could lead to exciting new features on the next generation iphone and beyond. The company has acquired Swedish company Polar Rose, known for its mobile face recognition technology FaceLib among other similar products.

With full face detection and tracking of faces in video, the solutions Polar Rose delivers could change how you interact with your iPhone. Now that the iPhone 4 has a front-facing camera, passcode lock could end up going the way of the dinosaurs.

Imagine holding your iPhone up and the device automatically unlocking to reveal your home screen. The neat trick is that your iPhone won't do this for anyone else. If the software on the iPhone recognizes your face, this replaces your passcode.

iPhone 5 Hardware: What We Know So Far

New information is revealed every day surrounding the upcoming iphone 5 design. As usual, Apple is silent as a whirlwind of leaks and rumors about next generation iPhone hardware makes its way to the public. Seen below is last fall's cool yet ridiculous handyflash concept, one of the first to appear.

The truth is that Apple has been granted a patent for changes to its capacitive touch screen that could lead to thinner iPhones. As described separating conductive nodes from the touch surface reduces the hardware necessary for a touch screen and saves battery power. The patent was first filed in July 2009, but it's not clear if this new interface will make it into the iPhone 5. Other hardware details have been leaked from Apple suppliers in Asia. Taiwanese supplier Kinsus is reportedly working on an update to Apple's A4 processor, currently found in the iPhone 4. The new System-on-chip (SOC) will be named the A5 or possibly the A8, and besides from increasing processing power, this silicon will include a baseband from Qualcomm. This fact could mean an iPhone 5 that works with multiple different network technologies on different carriers..

When it comes to graphics processing, Apple has been using the PowerVR SGX535 GPU since the iPhone 3GS. Thanks to the developer beta release of iOS 4.3, we know that drivers for the next generation PowerVR SGX543 GPU are included, so watch for the iPhone 5 to support a billion pixels per second and 35 million polygons per second at 200 Mhz. The new chip also supports Apple's OpenCL standard, which can be used to ease video processing loads on the main processor.

Finally, Apple has redesigned the antenna on the iPhone 4. It's not clear yet what the form factor of the iPhone 5 will look like, however should Apple continue with external radio antennas they will incorporate what they've learned into the device. The Verizon iPhone has antenna breaks in different places and includes optimization for the carrier's CDMA network. Those who have used the Verizon iPhone have not been able to replicate "antennagate" issues affecting some GSM iPhone users.