https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ik3LeqLv8
Interesting speculation from AppleInsider that seems to point to a 3D scanner being part of a future iPhone. Even if it is not in the iPhone 8, we will probably ee this sooner rather than later. If virtual/augmented reality and 3D printing are already here, your phones will need to keep up. Facial recognition is probably the first thing that comes to most people’s minds, but other uses could be for augmented reality and object scanning. While it may be cool to scan things around you, copyright laws will have to adjust quickly or else we can all just start scanning and printing things in stores instead of buying. I would also assume privacy would be an issue, both from what your phone collects about you through scanning your face as well as from those that would adjust their phones to scan people in public. It sounds very convenient to be able to open your phone with just your face, but the flip side to that is hackers would just need to walk up to you while they are hacking your accounts and scan your face while you walk down the street. Takes the idea of personal firewalls to a whole new level, huh? Innovations like this are ones we need to get ahead of instead of playing catch up after people misuse them. The video above is of a different project, but looks at a more hopeful view of what smartphone 3D scanning would be like (as well as displays a possible copyright violation by scanning R2-D2).