Why your smartphone may soon start scanning your veins — Edith Cowan University — “The new technology involves a single sensor that combines image data (vein) and minutiae-based data (fingerprint) to improve recognition exponentially. These different extraction approaches add complexity for anyone attempting to duplicate the system.”
Sensors
Deutsche Telekom to deploy smart parking and payments across the German city of Bonn
Mobile network operator Deutsche Telekom has signed a deal with the city of Bonn to install a network of sensors that will alert drivers to available parking spots and enable them to pay for their space using their mobile phone... More
Fitbit unveils Ionic smartwatch with Mastercard, Visa, AmEx and Starbucks payments support
Fitness wearable maker Fitbit has launched Ionic, a smartwatch that will combine health and fitness functions with the ability to make contactless Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments as well as payments using the wearer’s Starbucks Card account... More
Qualcomm and Vivo show off under-display fingerprint tech
Qualcomm and Vivo show off under-display fingerprint tech — ZDNet — “The US chip giant said the new solution, Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors, can be integrated underneath Oled displays and dunked in water. It also said the function works under metal and glass… Apple’s next iPhone is also rumoured to have the fingerprint sensor under the display.”
A biometric ring could replace your passwords, cards and keys
A biometric ring could replace your passwords, cards and keys — Engadget — “With a fingerprint sensor on the inside, it can confirm that you’re the authorized user. Then, you slide on the ring, and an onboard IR optical sensor makes sure the device is still on your finger. As long as you have not taken it off, you can authorize transactions with a tap of your hand… Token transmits the authentication signal over NFC in most situations.”
French casino to give visitors and employees biometric cards for access and payments
Visitors and employees at the newly opened Pleinair Casino in Marseilles, France will soon be given a biometric smart card equipped with a fingerprint sensor that will enable them to gain access to privileged areas and make payments across the venue... More
Feds look to experimental light-field cameras to ID drivers at the border
Feds look to experimental light-field cameras to ID drivers at the border — The Verge — “Developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the request of US Customs and Border Patrol… The system draws on light-field sensor arrays to mitigate the glass barrier, allowing cameras to focus past the reflections on the windshield to the faces of the drivers and passengers.”
Crédit Agricole adds HCE mobile payments in France through Dejamobile
PARTNER NEWS: Customers of French bank Crédit Agricole can now make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments using a new version of the bank’s mobile app ‘Ma Carte’ and Paylib, an online payment acceptance brand supported by France’s main banks... More
Samsung says iris scanner hack could “only have been made under a rare combination of circumstances”
Samsung has responded to the group of hackers from the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) who managed to defeat the iris recognition system on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones, saying that the hackers’ claims could “only have been made under a rare combination of circumstances”. More
Sprint to support next generation IoT devices across its nationwide network
Sprint to support next generation IoT devices across its nationwide network — Sprint — “LTE Cat 1 is designed to support low-power applications on the Sprint network such as vehicle telematics and industrial IoT applications. LTE Cat M1 and LTE Cat NB1 are designed to support numerous other applications requiring ultra-low throughput and power consumption such as industrial sensors, asset trackers, or wearables.”
CMU researchers create touchpads with a can of spray paint
CMU researchers create touchpads with a can of spray paint — Carnegie Mellon University — “Walls, furniture, steering wheels, toys and even Jell-O can be turned into touch sensors with the technology, dubbed Electrick… The ‘trick’ is to apply electrically conductive coatings or materials to objects or surfaces, or to craft objects using conductive materials.”
Mastercard tests biometric payments card in South Africa
Employees at Pick n Pay supermarket stores and Absa Bank staff across South Africa have been trialling a biometric card developed by Mastercard that lets them make a payment at any EMV terminal and authenticate the transaction by placing their finger on the embedded sensor. Additional trials are planned over the next few months, with a full roll out expected “later this year”. More
Samsung Pay expands on online payments plan
Samsung Pay will be available for online payments at “hundreds of thousands of merchants around the world” where Visa Checkout is accepted later this year. The news follows an announcement by the company’s Justin Denison at Samsung Unpacked 2017 last week that the service was heading online through “strategic partnerships”. More
Samsung reveals S8 with multi-biometrics, Samsung Pay reaches quarter of a billion transactions and adds online payments
Samsung has unveiled its latest Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus flagship devices, with support for iris and facial recognition technology and a fingerprint sensor which is now located on the back of the phone. Samsung Pass deals with major banks, an expansion of Samsung Pay to include online payments and details of its Bixby virtual assistant have also been announced. More
NXP adds new NFC chips and sensors to secure the Internet of Things
PARTNER NEWS: NXP has unveiled two new NFC chips and a range of NFC offerings designed to “capitalise on the inherent security and interactive capabilities of NFC for advanced product authentication, integrity assurance and enhanced user engagement across consumer manufactured goods, healthcare, retail and other industries”. More
ST discovery kit speeds time to market for contactless applications
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has combined its ST25R3911B NFC reader IC and its STM32L476RE microcontroller into a discovery kit designed to accelerate time to market for a wide range of contactless applications, including ticketing, asset tracking, device authentication, sensor data collection and access control... More
Nintendo Switch includes STMicroelectronics NFC technology
PARTNER NEWS: Nintendo has integrated a range of advanced semiconductor solutions from STMicroelectronics into the main console and controllers of its latest Nintendo Switch gaming device... More
Smart posters and clothes piggyback on FM signals to talk to phones and car radios
A technique to develop smart posters and clothing, which communicate directly with car radios or smartphones by using background FM radio signals to transform them into mini FM radio stations consuming virtually zero power, has been unveiled by a University of Washington (UW) team... More
GSMA predicts 1.1bn 5G connections by 2025
The GSMA forecasts there will be 1.1bn 5G mobile connections by 2025, with 5G networks providing one in eight of all mobile connections and driving “massive rollout of intelligent IoT nodes for a multitude of scenarios”... More
IBM’s Watson integrates Visa Token Service to enable tokenized payments on connected devices
IBM is to integrate Visa Token Service into its Watson IoT cognitive technology platform to enable payments to be embedded into “any device connected to the Internet of Things (IoT)”, with all of IBM’s Watson IoT Platform customers gaining access to Visa payment services via IBM’s cloud service — rather than businesses needing to be approached on a one-by-one basis... More