Innovator Spotlight: Forget Your Passwords and Stop Typing
Jorge Gomez
Jorge Gomez serves as VP of Global Strategic Alliances at Andago, where he analyzes business opportunities and develops new market initiatives, increasing Andago’s Health and Wellness ecosystem of partner companies. Jorge combines his Computer Science engineering vision with an Executive International MBA background, along with a thriving passion for state-of-the-art technologies and World cultures.
As technology evolves, only a fraction of the innovations are adopted by the users. I recently attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 in Las Vegas. CES gathers over 140,000 attendees from all over the world as the best known technology companies announce their upcoming products for the year.We all know – and even expect – that phones, tablets, laptops and TV become slimmer, faster and better equipped every year: the current mobile handsets trend includes multi-core processors, 720p 4.5-inch displays, 8MP cameras, NFC capabilities and HDMI. The new tablets are packing Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich), huge quad-core processors and large 1280×800 high definition pixel displays, which makes them look like a cross between a supercomputer and a clipboard.
Following Apple’s thin Macbook, Ultrabooks have taken over the laptop space and now they all come in slim, chrome plating form factor of choice. TVs are all “smart” now, and the most advanced feature large HDTV screens with 3D capabilities using either very light glasses or even no glasses at all. Meanwhile gaming devices are becoming more integrated with the user interactions, as even Microsoft’s Kinect was announced for the PC.
Yeah, it’s all good. Innovation makes the devices go beyond their capabilities year after year. But WHERE are the upgrades on the interfaces themselves? We are entering the Chinese Year of the Dragon in 2012 and still use a tiny keyboard to operate smartphones or remotes to control the TV. Speech recognition has been in the market for quite a bit, but somehow it’s taking a long time for consumers to adapt to innovations in this field. I very much liked the approach that Apple had with the introduction of Siri, After its success, many similar applications- that where already available on the Android Market- suddenly caught the attention of the public.
One of the novelties I liked the most is the biometric facial recognition system embedded on the Android 4.0 operating system, which is being widely adopted by users. Forget about pin codes, sim card lock codes, passwords or drawing patterns with your finger over your smartphone screen. Do you want to use your device? Just point the camera at your face and the facial recognition biometric control access will make sure that you are protected against unauthorized access. The applications could range from using the tablet to starting your car to medical apps. No more keys, no hassles no buttons. Just point the device at your face, and you are in.
Real-time facial recognition can be easily applied to passive surveillance and visitor management authentication systems thus strengthening existing biometric innovations for future growth. All of the little steps we are seeing in this direction will make biometric technology more widely available, more accurate and make its usage more widespread. Using multiple biometrics helps in improving the accuracy of the overall system. I expect to see in the future phone cameras being used along with voice recognition systems, as the use of multiple biometric indicators for implementation has emerged as a possible alternative for traditional methods. The use of more than one physiological or behavioral characteristic for enrollment and verification or identification is expected to enhance security, making our lives easier and integrating technology even more in our daily activities.
A challenge for you: Go ahead and stop remembering countless passwords and PINs. Use the secure, reliable and easy to use biometric systems and voice recognition systems embedded in your devices. Finally, don’t forget to share your experiences with us!
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