Hitachi to expand finger scanner business

What's more accurate than iris scans or finger print readers for authentication? Finger vein patterns, according to Tokyo-based Hitachi. The company announced on Tuesday that is has established a dedicated finger vein authentication business center within four subsidiaries in North America, Europe, China and Asia. Hitachi started investing in the technology back in 1997 and now expects sales to hit $875 million (100 billion yen) in the next three years, starting in April 2006.

The company currently makes a matchbox-size vein identification unit that uses near-infrared beams to scan the unique pattern of crisscrossing veins in one's fingers and then match the image with records in a database. Tests showed false rejection rates at less than 0.01 percent and a false acceptance rate of less than 0.00002 percent. Beyond ATM kiosks and PCs, Hitachi is also adapting the technology for the ignition key in cars.

[Terry Gay]

It's About Time

I have been advocating this for a long time. Companies including Microsoft, banks, Pay Pal and others, should require biometric identifications instead of passwords. My Hotmail password gets hacked daily.

Thieves also try and brute force my bank password everyday. I've had to cancel my credit cards as well as my Pay Pal account because of hackers from Germany and Russia. Biometric readers would be a safe way to log in and nobody could hack my account unless they hack the companies' servers.

Please Bill Gates, CNET and others, consider this for logging in instead of passwords. Hackers are ruining the web. If something isn't done soon, I am considering supending all commerce over the web. This technology will put a serious crimp in these thieves attempts.