Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 Iris Scanner lets you pay with your eyes

Samsung just revealed what may be the next step in biometrics. 

The company's Galaxy Note 7, announced at a press event Tuesday, will allow you to complete mobile payments using the phone's built-in iris scanner. In other words: you'll be able to buy things with your eyes. 

The handset's iris scanner will work similarly to current smartphones' fingerprint sensors: after you make a purchase with your phone (via Samsung Pay), you can choose to authenticate with either the fingerprint sensor or the iris scanner. 

It may sound more like something out of science fiction than a feature you would actually want to use but those who are particularly security conscious may want to consider it. Samsung tells us that each device can only be programmed to recognize one set of eyes and that it's impossible to "trick" the device with a photo.

IMAGE: JONNY LIN/MASHABLE

Eventually, you'll also be able to use the Note's iris scanner to make in-app purchases with Samsung Pass, which allows third-party developers and banking institutions to take advantage of the company's eye scanning technology.  

Perhaps more importantly though, the new iris scanning could give more users a reason to start using Samsung Pay, the Korean company's answer to Apple Pay and Android Pay. Unlike Google and Apple's mobile payments platforms, Samsung Pay doesn't rely on Near Field Communication (NFC) chips to make payments so you can use the technology at more in-store locations. 

Whether or not people will feel comfortable scanning their eyeballs at checkout is another matter. Mashable's Raymond Wong tried out the Note 7's iris scanning on a pre-production phone and found it more clunky than using fingerprints alone. But that could very well change by the time the phone ships to the public. 

Venmo's in-app purchases are now available to everyone

You'll soon be able to use Venmo for much more than just paying friends.

Nearly six months after taking its first steps to expand beyond person-to-person payments, Paypal-owned Venmo is now opening up its in-app purchase abilities to all its users. Beginning Wednesday, users will be able to make purchases within nearly a dozen apps using their existing Venmo accounts. 

Previously only available to a limited group of beta testers, Venmo's in-app purchasing will work a lot like that used by Apple Pay and Android Pay. Users will now see a Venmo option when checking out in one of Venmo's partner apps. 

After completing a purchase, users can choose to share the transaction to Venmo's social feed or split the bill with friends in the app. It's these social interactions — splitting and sharing purchases — that stand to set Venmo apart in an increasingly crowded payments space, according to Jo Lambert, PayPal's vice president of consumer product.

"From a merchant's perspective, it's pretty huge because it opens up a whole new customer base and referral network for our merchant partners," Lambert tells Mashable. "It basically opens the door to millions of socially-connected consumers."

IMAGE: VENMO

For Venmo, expanding into in-app payments marks a significant milestone in that it's the first time PayPal can begin to monetize its payments app in a meaningful way. While user transactions will work the same (free for debit and checking accounts and a 3% fee for credit cards), merchant partners pay a fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per each transaction.

The app has 11 merchant partners for now (it began its beta in January with just two) but Lambert says the company expects to add more apps soon now that the service is out of beta. 

Here's a full list of all the apps accepting payments via Venmo:

• Munchery 
• Gametime 
• Poshmark 
• delivery.com 
• Priv
• Hop Market
• Wish 
• Parking Panda, 
• Dolly, 
• Urgentli
• Boxed

You can now use Apple Pay at some Bank of America ATMs

You can now use Apple Pay to withdraw cash from a number of ATMs offered by Bank of America. It's a major addition to the Apple Pay network as Bank of America is the second largest bank in the U.S.

A detailed graphic is now posted on the Bank of America website showing exactly how to use the Apple Pay system at its ATM terminals around the country. After you upload your Bank of America debit card to your digital wallet, you can immediately begin using the ATMs.

However, the Apple Pay functionality is, for now, only available at select ATMs that are emblazoned with the Apple Pay logo and equipped with an NFC reader, allowing you to hold your device over the logo and begin the process. Currently, the ability to deposit funds is not available, according to the bank's website.

The first hints that Apple Pay would be coming to Bank of America as well as Wells Fargo and other ATMs cropped up back in January. Around the same time, Chase bank also confirmed that Apple Pay-powered ATM withdrawals were coming to its locations.

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I just used ApplePay at a BofA ATM!

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And while Bank of America introduced basic Apple Pay features at participating retailers back in 2014, random reports of the Apple Pay ATM functionality began popping up back in May of this year.

Whether this will help spur sales of iPhone and Apple Watch devices remains to be seen, but as Apple Pay continues to spread and competing systems like CurrentC falter, Apple may, over time, have a mobile payments hit on its hand.