A Milestone In Fingerprint Recognition
A Biometrics/Security Vendor known as “AuthenTec, Inc.” has just announced that it has shipped its 50,000,000th Fingerprint Sensor to a major customer.
Here are the details: “AuthenTec (NASDAQ: AUTH), the world’s leading provider of smart fingerprint sensors and solutions, today announced the shipment of its 50 millionth fingerprint sensor, establishing a new record for the fingerprint sensor market. Founded in October 1998, AuthenTec established a previous industry benchmark of 25 million sensors in November 2007 and took less than two years to double that mark to 50 million. AuthenTec’s 50 millionth sensor was shipped to Fujitsu Limited for integration into its newest smart phone, where it will be used for touch-powered features including security, navigation, personalization and convenience.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/7451/).
Final Thoughts On Today’s Posting
Back when Biometrics was just entering the marketplace, and was slowly starting to make news and being scrutinized the public, the trend appeared to be that each Biometric Vendor would develop its technology for just a very specific purpose, or for a component for an overall solution. For example, when the Hand Geometry Scanner came out decades ago, it served two very specific and primary markets: Physical Access Entry, and Time and Attendance.
The customer would often be left to do the software development on their own, or if they needed to have a very specific and customized Biometric Solution, the customer would have to depend on various types of Biometric Vendors to fill each part of the bill of materials for the overall aim of the Biometric Solution.
But today, as the various Biometric Technologies and Information Technology are converging together into a single, one stop shop platform for the customer, the key word now in the industry is, in my view, “Integration”. This is best exemplified by the Cell Phone. When it first came out, its primary function was just for two way communication. Now we see it for every part of our social, professional, and consumer type of lifestyles.
We are now seeing this trend in Biometrics, especially with the advent of the new Operating System, known as Windows 7. I have already written a couple of recent Postings about this recently, especially with the Biometric Vendors now all coming on board to build and create solutions for the Windows Biometric Framework, which is introduced in Windows 7.
It seems like the word “Integration” is now being used very seriously. We are witnessing Biometric Technologies not just for a specific market or a specific component, but rather it is now being integrated into the every day life of the average consumer into the products they use for their personal life or work life.
For example, this ranges from such things as Identity Management Tools, Security for conducting online transactions of all kinds, types and sorts, uses in laptops, personal computers and smartphones, energy savings, use in social networking sites like Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, You Tube, etc.
I have seen and heard a lot of fancy corporate and technology buzzwords in my time with no solid substance behind it, but “Integration” seems to be getting a solid footprint with no froth on the top, in my opinion. Let’s see if this continues well into the future, or it will just be another fancy word which phases out in time, like “dot-com”.
Source for this Posting: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/7451/
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