innovations
20
magazine
2
i
X marks the Chargespot
The first wireless charger compatible
with both Qi and PMA standards has
been launched by ChargeSpot Wireless
Power. Suitable for use in offices, hotels,
cafés, airports and other public spaces,
ChargeSpot Pocket is completely hidden
from sight under a table or desktop, with
just a sticker marking where a device
should be placed for charging. This makes
ChargeSpot Pocket particularly suitable
where there is a risk of spillages.
Lack of standards
limits appeal of
biometrics
Research company Frost &
Sullivan is calling for global
standards for smartphone
biometrics or at least a common
set of rules in order to encourage
its use for authenticating mobile
commerce and mobile payments.
Frost & Sullivan expects the
number of biometric smartphone
users worldwide to go from 43
million in 2013 to 471 million in
2017 and biometric revenue from
smartphones to grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 39.6%, from
$53.6 million in 2013 to $396.2
million in 2019.
However, in its new report,
Biometrics Go Mobile: A Market
Overview
, it warns that while
biometrics has the potential to
outstrip existing authentication
technologies, such as two factor
authentication (2FA), a lot of
work still needs to be done to
allay privacy fears and improve
performance particularly around
false acceptance and false rejection
rates.
Frost & Sullivan ICT global
programme director Jean-Noël
Georges said: “Due to existing
hardware capabilities across devices,
most of the growth is expected
from facial and voice authentication
technologies.While the uptake of
biometric technologies will get
a boost from the proliferation
of new devices with fingerprint
authentication capability, their
acceptance will be tepid until the
market develops more sophisticated
and accurate authentication
software.”
All your calls on
one device
Supporting the expansion of its
mobile services, including a new
4G offering, BT has launched a new
product that gives users all the
features of an office desk phone on a
mobile device.
Targeted at small and medium-sized
businesses, BT One Phone links all of an
individual’s numbers, including landline,
extension and mobile number, to a single
mobile phone. Calls to any number will
be routed to the user’s mobile phone,
minimising the risk of missed calls.
BT One Phone is hosted in the
cloud, giving users access to rich
call management features, such as
call forwarding and hunt groups;
expandability and resilience; and
easy management of call settings.
Administrators can add and remove
employees as they join or leave,
activate or deactivate SIM cards and set
and manage call groups themselves.
To install BT One Phone, BT will
usually build a dedicated mobile
network in a customer’s premises,
offering indoor mobile coverage and
call quality equivalent to a landline.
Any phone with a BT One Phone
SIM automatically connects to the
dedicated mobile network as soon as
it’s in range.When an employee leaves
the office there’s a seamless handover
to the BT Mobile national network.
In September Barclays became
the first High Street bank
to announce plans to use
finger scanning for customer
authentication. The Barclays
Biometric Reader authenticates
customers using Hitachi’s
Finger Vein Authentication
Technology (VeinID), which
eliminates the need for
customers to remember
PINs, passwords or codes to
access online banking. VeinID,
already used by banks in Japan,
North America and Europe,
is claimed to be more secure
than fingerprint recognition as
vein patterns must be from a
living body and are extremely
difficult to spoof or replicate.
The Barclays Biometric Reader
will be offered to Barclays
Corporate Banking clients from
next year. Barclays already uses
voice biometrics to enable
Barclays Wealth customers to
identify themselves on phone
calls.
Swipe and print
The Brother PT-P750W is the world’s
first label printer with NFC (Near Field
Communication) connectivity, as well as
Wi-Fi andWireless Direct. Users of NFC-
enabled Android devices can establish a
connection with the portable labeller with
a simple swipe, making it quick and easy
to print labels created with Brother’s iPrint
& Label app. Owners of other devices
can connect to the labeller through a
wireless network or via aWireless Direct
connection.
Talking pictures
The free SpeakingPhoto iOS and Android app was developed
for the consumer market but can also be used by businesses
to enhance photos with voice recordings, such as customer
testimonials. Simply open the app, take a photo or choose
one from a camera roll, record your message, save and share
instantly on social media or via email. Users can build a
slideshow by tagging up to eight SpeakingPhotos.
The introduction of smartphones with fingerprint recognition
technology, notably the iPhone 5s, is helping to change user
attitudes to biometrics, claims Intelligent Environments.
Research by the digital financial services provider shows that
eight in ten (79%) Brits are now ready to ditch their passwords in
favour of biometric security measures.
Fingerprint scanners are much the most popular option,
according to the company’s latest Future Password Index. More
than half (53%) of UK banking customers want their banks to
integrate fingerprint scanners into their digital banking services,
compared to 33% for iris scanning, 30% for facial recognition,
29% for finger vein scanning and 27% for voice recognition.
Fingerprints get the vote
