28 July 2007

Secure mobile phones will use fingerprint ID

Few moths ago I wrote an article about unique ClassifEye’s software-only technology that leverages the on-board camera for secure authentication and non-repudiation necessary for mobile commerce and other customer verification challenges.

The story is continued few days ago with article about similar Oki’s Iris Recognition Technology that is based on OKI's original iris recognition algorithm using standard optical cameras that are equipped in mobile terminal.

The main advantage of these software solutions is the fact that they eliminate the necessity for costly biometric hardware integration and is downloadable to existing camera smartphones which is the clear benefit over the fingerprint solutions that requires additional hardware to be build in.

Anyway, by some latest reports and researches it seems that fingerprint security will be the next big thing in cell phone industry and that it will be standard in mobile authentication because if the higher security, less errors and simple use.

Also besides providing enhanced security, the fingerprint reader can also be used as an alternative user interface; imagine some kind of a fingerprint launcher can for example lets the user assign applications to different fingers for easy application launching.

It's also possible to use a finger as a kind of alternative mouse, scrolling up and down Web pages or tapping to select items.

Sop?! What's next? Possibly business from the likes of Nokia and Motorola. According to Frost & Sullivan:

“This exceptional growth in the silicon fingerprint market is primarily due to the growing popularity of biometric-enabled laptops and PC peripherals,” says Frost and Sullivan Research Analyst Imran F Khan. “Also, increasing security concerns drive manufacturers from vertical markets toward a relatively safe and convenient security solution such as silicon fingerprint sensors.”

Cell phone manufacturers in particular have recently expressed interest in silicon chip fingerprint sensors due to their small size and low power consumption, which make it an ideal security solution for portable and battery-operated devices. The growing popularity of silicon fingerprint-enabled laptops and cell phones will also likely fuel adoption of silicon sensors in door access, automobiles, and ATMs.