Here’s Why Samsung Just Put An Iris-Scanner into Its New Galaxy Tab

Today in Orwellian tech news…

As part of their Make for India program, Samsung just announced the Galaxy Tab Iris, a new 7-inch tablet computer with built-in iris scanning technology.

They’re releasing the device with this eye-based biometric authentication ability in India, because the country is home to over 1.3 billion residents—accounting for about one of every six people on the planet—who speak more than 400 native tongues. It’s a quick, secure, digital way to break down language barriers to identify folks in financial, governmental and educational settings.

By current standards, it’s a pretty basic device, most closely resembling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab A 7-Inch—with the addition of cellular and iris-scanning capabilities. But it runs one of the latest Android operating systems and has a fairly respectable processor, memory and battery to go along with its Bluetooth and multi-band Wi-Fi connectivity.

As administratively helpful and individually enabling as this technology may be, we can’t help but think of Minority Report (the eye surgery thing, not the augmented reality swiping through the air thing). Along with what other body parts may be scanned in future devices.