 Click image to launch the VR player of the LA-Times
Austrian philosopher and teacher Rudolf Steiner created a theory of human development based on seven-year cycles that were associated with astrology. |
My fist visit to the London Biometrics Show was back in October 2003. It was 2 years after 9/11 and the security world was set on fire. Gartner, Forrester and all the other researchers promised a biometric world with astronomical growth figures. | |
BMF introduced in 2003 a biometric sensor based on TFT-material. It was a so-called pressure sensitive sensor. Through various layers of material an image of the fingerprint was created solely by a simple pressure of the finger on the reader. Big benefit: you could read the fingerprint under almost every circumstances even "under" water (see picture). It was sold in Europe via Hitachi. I was really impressed.
Little did I know know at that time that the layers in the readers only survived roughly 1000x presses. So when I introduced a IP-based variant of the reader for securing a datacenter I ran into trouble a few months after the go-live. Shit happens. But Hitachi promised me the world and came up with the prototype of the finger vein scanner in the summer 2005. It was the death for BMF. The company never had real lift-off.
Nor did Hitachi by the way. Still their finger vein solution needs to lift-off. They are pushing hard on ATM's in banking, but Fingerprint looks to be the winner in this sector.
Hitachi's business model sucks. It lacks interoperability with the other vein vendors. There is simply no standard for finger vein, which makes it hard for enterprises to invest in. They will never be sure of their investment. It used to be the same for Fingerprint, but those technology vendors (with a little help from the Government) solved the interoperability problem and then it took off.
#Biometrics2015
In my last post I told you my wish-list. I was really looking forward to this year's edition of the Biometrics show. But I was very disappointed.
#BiometricsXXXX is organized by Reed/Elsevier. When I was exhibiting in London in 2013, I already noticed that the format was in decline. Somehow Reed/Elsevier was not able to attract the new young and hip biometric technology startups and they totally missed out on FIDO and app-builders. Not to speak of Apple, which was a major biometric player with the launch of the 5S that year.
Reed/Elsevier just played safe and did the trick they'd done for a decade. Now in 2015, the #Biometrics2015 is basically diminished to nothing to be part off anymore. There were a few old players (HID, Cogent & Wacom) a 2 mobile biometric solutions and Fujisoft, a vein vendor (old Sony-stuff, but revived)and yes NokNok was there, I said hi to Jamie.
I met old friends now working at Crossmatch, talked business, and basically agreed not to meet at Biometrics anymore but at more inspiring events or locations.
This was my last BiometricsXXXX, goodbye Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Goodbye Reed/Elsevier. I hope life treats you well, but somehow I think this was the last that we've seen from Reed/Elsevier on biometrics too.
Fujisoft vein technology for physical and logical access
It's funny how the human mind works. It simply gets used to things. When I bought my first iPhone (yes a 3GS), I thought it was big (compared to my Nokia at that time). |  |
The 5S I purchased only because of the fingerprint reader, not of the size at that time. I thought it was way to big.
But now after almost a year working with the iPhone 6 looking back on the previous iPhones; they were so small ;-)
My son just got his iPhone 6s Plus. What a giant.
I wonder when we start calling with an iPad Pro to our ears :-)
Size does matter, but overtime big things just look smaller don't they?
So tomorrow evening I'm off to London visiting the Biometrics2015 the next day and the days after. |  |
I really love vein technology. It is fast, reliable and user-friendly. Nevertheless the business model of the 2 major vendors sucks. The closed template business models makes interoperability almost impossible and increases costs dramatically.
That is in my honest opinion the major showstopper for vein tech.
But maybe I'm surprised this week.
So Apple launched it's iPad Pro last month and Microsoft hits back this week with the launch of the Surface book (and Surface Pro 4). | |
So November will be a month with hard choices. I'm in the US that month traveling a few states. As the iPad Pro launches early November, last week I decided to pick one up. My current iPad is 3 years old and doesn't respond to iOS9 that quickly anymore. Yes watching movies, do some surfing and listening music still goes fine, but everything else just sucks.
But since last Tuesday when Microsoft presented it's new Surface line, I'm puzzled. Will I choose Microsoft, enjoy the Windows 10 experience across all devices? And they certainly hook me into their amazing Hololens shortly thereafter, or will it be the iPad Pro with the for special for mobile devices optimized operating systems iOS?
Stay tuned, I'll let you know next month.
This summer we successfully sold Authasas BV to Micro Focus. This weekend the closing documents arrived complete with tombstone. I'm very proud of this achievement and happy to share a picture of the so-called tombstone. | |
This weekend my wife and I were in Harrogate for a wedding. It was a traditional english wedding which we really enjoyed.
Harrogate is named the happiest place to live in UK. It's a typical english place with stunning parks and beautiful old buildings.
When we tried to fly out of Leeds/Bradford's airport (because of delays we eventually flew out of Manchester), just after the security check I spotted this old biometric time punch system of Recognition.
Once considered hightech but never a real breakthrough in the global biometric market.
Nevertheless it's good to see Harrogaters live in the 21st century ;-)
Author
I am Reinier van der Drift. owner of FERGIL. Serial Entrepreneur & Technology Freak. Expert on Strong Authentication.
Blog on StartUps, Gadgets, Technology in general and my day to day busy-ness.
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