ThirdFactor | Biometrics may replace doormen

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A company is offering a biometric alternative to the standard doorman employed at many of the metropolitan high-rise apartment and condominium complexes across the U.S., according to a Gothamist article.

The company, called Kent Security Services, calls the service a “virtual doorman” in which both face recognition and voice recognition are utilized to determine whether someone entering the building is a resident.

If that person is recognized by the system as a resident of the building, the door is unlocked, if not, they are prompted for voice recognition. If an individual not living there is at the door, Kent staffers intervene via phone to handle the situation. Despite roughly 30,000 doormen contracts expiring in New York in April, doormen union reps are not worried citing that machines are not yet capable of taking the place of all the facets of a doorman’s job.

Read the full story here.

Oracle integrates biometrics into retail POS

Oracle has released a new version of Oracle Retail Point-of-Service that aims to increase security, operational efficiency and functionality in part by integrating biometrics.

Oracle partnered with DigitalPersonal to add integrated biometrics to the POS package. Users of the software will login using their fingerprint, which will replace the need for PINs or passwords. This feature intends to reduce fraud by eliminating the possibility of unauthorized employees using a manager ID or swipe card to access the POS and approve overrides.

Precise develops smart cases for mobile devices

Precise Biometrics has developed a new line of “smart cases” for brands of tablets and smart phones to be released in 2012 and 2013. The new smart cases have built-in card reader and fingerprint sensor enabling users to both secure their devices as well as replace various password-based security for protected online sites and applications.

New York plans to replace the MetroCard, pilots smart cards

A pilot program is in the works to replace the New York City MetroCard with a chip-enabled smart card, according to the New York Times.

‘Butt biometrics’ is no joke

A Japanese researcher has developed a biometric that could be used to protect a car from theft: butt biometrics, according to verge.com.

Shigeomi Koshimizu, an associate professor at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo has developed the technology. A seat pressure map to generates 39 indices that are used to uniquely identify a subject’s posterior. Results so far have been encouraging, with average false reject rates of 2.2% and false accept rates of 1.1%.

NIST adds new biometric mode standards

The National Institute for Standards and Technology published a revised biometric standard that expands the type and amount of information that forensic scientists can share across their international networks to identify victims or solve crimes. Biometric data is a digital or analog representation of physical attributes that can be used to uniquely identify us.

Viv.ie announce planned summer release for high security face recognition solution

Viv.ie, a start-up located in Ireland working on face recognition technology, announced it is finishing a new type of facial recognition technology that does away with a number of the security pitfalls current facial recognition technology is commonly guilty of, according to a Sydney Morning Herald article.

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Biometrics may replace doormen