The magic is in the finger.
Fingerprint technology takes advantage of personal signatures the way current devices use passwords. This saves mobile users the pressure of memory as the finger grants access to mobile devices and all their features the way the password does.
“It’s a mature technology,” remarked Findlay Shearer, 3G platform marketing engineer for Motorola Inc.’s Semiconductor Products Sector, which just signed an agreement with Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd. to bring the fingerprint technology to handhelds. “It’s coming more and more to mobile devices.”
These companies are not alone in the fingerprint business. Such companies as Hewlett-Packard Co., Realtime North America Inc. and AuthenTec Inc. have thrown resources into the technology.
Indeed, some handheld makers are acknowledging the potential. Already HP has the solution in two of its products, the iPAQ Pocket PC H5450 and the H5550. Japanese wireless giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to sell a new phone from Fujitsu that includes a fingerprint scanner. AuthenTec said it has signed deals with several additional major handset makers to sell mobile phones using its fingerprint-scanning technology. AuthenTec’s chief executive officer, Scott Moody, said the phones will begin shipping later this year and early next year, and some will be available in the United States.
Three kinds of sensors lend themselves to signature technology-optical, which uses light; acoustic, which uses sound; and semiconductor. Each has its unique kind of sensor, but the semiconductor sensor is most suited for the fingerprint technology.
“It is ideal for constrained devices such as the personal digital assistant,” said Shearer.
AuthenTec’s TruePrint fingerprint scanner technology works by creating a tiny radio-frequency field that can capture the image of a subsurface layer of finger skin, a layer that presents a clean representation of the fingerprint pattern. Moody said most fingerprint scanning technologies read the outermost layer of skin, which doesn’t necessarily offer a clear and clean image of the fingerprint itself.
Fingerprints “get worn from working in your yard over the weekend,” Moody explained. “It needs to work for all customers.”
Shearer, who noted that the solution has standard interfaces across the industry, explained the Fujitsu sensor matches what is registered in the PDA when the end user buys the devices.
“It uses hand coating that does not wear,” he explained.
“The Fujitsu technology is unique because it is able to recognize fingerprint patterns no matter how you put your fingertip on the sensor. The sensor can read it and determine whether it is recognized,” said Motorola. “Once recognized as the authorized user of the device, it will grant access to the device.”
Further, Moody said the technology is extremely low power and the scanner can be slimmed down to the size of a dime-or even smaller-making the technology a fit for wireless. Moody said forthcoming phones that include AuthenTec’s scanner even will be able to read a fingerprint while it is sliding over the scanner, meaning the scanner itself can be smaller than one that reads a stationary finger. Moody said such a scanner also can be used as a phone’s five-way navigation key.
Such innovations in fingerprint scanning also could lead to a variety of new mobile-phone applications, Moody said. For example, in Japan, users will be able to use their fingerprint scanners to “pet” their virtual pets, which are mobile-phone games that call on players to nurture digital animals. Phone makers also could offer finger-based speed dials, allowing users to call different family members depending on which finger is scanned.
Shearer said the user can put other people’s fingerprints on the device, allowing them to use it. In case of emergencies, explained Shearer, fingerprint technology does not stand in the way as a special button can be pushed by anybody even if the device owner is too handicapped to reach or use the handheld.
But security is the ultimate logic of the technology. That is one of the motivations for Brevard County, Fla., to install it in a deal with Realtime North America. The county includes the city of Melbourne as well as the NASA space facilities at Cape Verde, Cape Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, which lies in a hurricane-prone area.
“Because of the need to access multiple critical systems, eight-digit passwords with lower case, upper case and numbers were inconvenient, insecure and time consuming to retrieve from PDAs where they were typically stored and secured with another easier-to-remember single password,” said Realtime North America of its fingerprint solution known as bioLock.
Moody said cautious phone users or businesspeople will be able to protect the information in their mobile phone so that only they can access it.
Such applications are where AuthenTec has been doing most of its business. The company sells the majority of its sensors for access control applications, or scanners for doors and other entryways. The New York City police department uses AuthenTec’s scanners in some of its buildings, and American Express uses the technology in its headquarters. Further, some laptop and PDA makers install AuthenTec scanners in their equipment.
