Bob, that's a PR announcing the use of an e-wallet application, one of those deals where you give over your personal information to a big company so they can market your data like crazy in return for you not having to show ID every time you spend money. Kind of like an Internet version of a supermarket card. Microsoft is trying it with Passport, among others.
I find e-wallets obnoxious, personally, but your question was if this has implications for IDX. It's too early to read very much into this, although the introductions of e-wallets, nonbiometric single sign-ons, and smart cards all have the effect of lessening the advantages of a biometric solution one way or another. . . so it is either neutral to mildly unfavorable in my opinion.
E-wallets are competitive with biometrics because they reduce the need for people to keep re-introducing themselves to remote parties (imagine the combination of IDX biometrics with Novell's NDS), and nonbiometric single sign-ons reduce passwords to one (not unlike using BioShield), while smart cards plus passwords can improve security over simple passwords, although they aren't as secure as a biometric approach.
So the interesting question is, are these developing technologies leading up to biometrics, or heading off biometrics? No answer yet. |
