I have copied the attached article for information. I have highlighted where I see Maxwell having the potential to jump in to the telecommunication device by providing the necessary power supply. Some interesting names (Siemens) that already have relationships with Maxwell.
A report on fingerprint ID in the wireless market from PCS Week (June 2, 1999):
"Within a couple years, built-in fingerprint sensors may become standard equipment on
wireless handsets. No single development has taken the market by storm so far, but
once you start looking around a surprising number of people turn out to be working on
biometric applications for mobile handsets - and other bits of personal technology. The
most obvious application is security. By verifying the person using a handset is actually
its proper owner, carriers not only can reduce fraud losses, but also remove the burden
of entering passwords and personal identification numbers from users.
"However, security is not the only advantage gained from wireless biometrics. If
handsets can positively identify a user, they can also
communicate that identification to other people or to machines. Thus,
biometric capability would provide an additional foundation for the handset-based
e-cash and e-commerce applications that developers keep trying to float in market trials
- and could even create a 'trusted third party authentication' market to boost carrier
revenues.
"Most of the development work in the field is being done in Europe
. . . . The front runner appears to be German conglomerate Siemens AG [SMAWY],
which demonstrated a prototype unit at the CeBIT trade show in March. The phone
was basically Siemens' high-end SL10 model, with a fingertip sensor pad set dead
center on the back of the handset. The 160-square-millimeter sensor reads a fingerprint
by using electrical characteristics of human skin to work out the precise distance
between the skin and each of some 65,000 capacitive sensor elements in the surface of
the chip.
"The result is a detailed, 500 dot per inch picture of the fingerprint, which is then
analyzed by image processing software to extract characteristics like curves and
endpoints. Finally, these characteristics are compared to a previously recorded user
fingerprint, using the same system of 'minutiae' used by criminologists. Other
development projects are not yet at the prototype stage, but companies are beginning to
build alliances aimed at commercializing fingerprint technology. French handset maker
Sagem SA has lined up a partnership with STMicroelectronics [STM] to put the
capability in a range of high-volume consumer devices, including mobile phones. The
companies will use STMicroelectronics' TouchChip
technology, which also uses capacitive sensing to read a fingerprint,
and algorithms developed by Sagem to analyze the results.
"Closer to home, Motorola Inc. [MOT] also is getting into the act. The company forged
a strategic alliance with Identix Inc. . . . Compaq Computer Corp. [CPQ] already
markets a $99 plug-in device that provides fingerprint access to Windows 95 and NT
servers using the Identicator system. However, it may not be as easy to move from the
desktop to the mobile handset, an environment that will prove
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much more demanding in terms of miniaturization, power demands and cost.
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"Siemens' chip appears to address the size issue. The chip is no larger than the fingertip
it is reading. Siemens execs say the company can manufacture the chip for less than $50
in commercial quantities. Adding $50 to the cost of a handset would not be done lightly,
but given how directly this technology could attack fraud, and how heavy wireless fraud
losses are, carriers may well find it acceptable.
"The big issue would be reliability. . . . However, Raj Nanavati of New York-based
research firm International Biometric Group says the systems actually work very well.
"'The fingerchip technologies are very accurate,' says Nanavati, 'and if somebody's using
them regularly on their cell phone, they'll be more so.' . . .
"The biggest challenges to the technology arise from the dirty,
rough-and-tumble nature of the outside world. Because of the constraints of the sensing
technology, users must directly touch the microchip. 'You have a silicon chip that's
usually in a very pristine
environment,' Nanavati says. "People are wearing special suits and
they're not allowed to wear perfume and so on. Then you ask someone to put their
finger on it.'
"However, vendors have made great progress in world-proofing the
technology, largely solving problems with electrostatic discharge and
malfunctions caused by objects tapping the chip. 'A couple years ago
the chip technologies really weren't ready for this kind of application,' Nanavati says.
'Now they are.'
"If the technical and cost challenges could be met, there would be plenty of applications
waiting to use the technology. Wireless phones are only one of these, but they could
prove an important one. The fraud application is obvious. However, carriers would
potentially
be able to leverage the systems they install for their own benefit.
"Once a carrier has the ability to authenticate a user to its own
satisfaction, it could also serve as a trusted third party providing
that authentication to others. In a system where fingerprints have
become a widely used form of identification, users would not necessarily want to
register with every individual real world or
online merchant they deal with. A single clearinghouse for
verification would become a key part of the system, and phone
companies would be an obvious choice to provide that service since
they already have network infrastructures in place.
"In the case of wireless, users already would carry their own
authentication terminals, and their own fingerprint profiles, with
them. The fingerprint information itself would reside only in the
handset, helping allay user privacy concerns, and merchants would not need to supply
scanners at points of sale. The same terminals used for credit card verification could
provide a carrier-supplied
confirmation code when a user provides a fingerprint to the handset .. . ." |
