Fujitsu Working on Palm Vein Scanning Technology for Future Smartphones

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Although fingerprint scanners in smartphones seem to be "all the rage" these days, Fujitsu is banking on the idea that their new ID tech will be the victor, or at least a better alternative. They are working on a palm vein scanning tech for smartphones. This technology is something they have actually been working on for quite some time and have even implemented in some laptops. Here's a quote with a few more details,

The principle behind this relatively less-known biometric is almost the same with fingerprints. Palm patterns are just as unique as a fingerprint, but it is only one half of the equation. The other half involves vein points, which are scanned using near-infrared light and matched against previously recorded patterns and points. There is one key distinction here. Blood needs to be flowing through those veins for palms to match. No disembodied hands here for faking identities. Fujitsu boasts of a 0.0008 percent false positive and a 0.01 percent false rejection rate with this system.

This might sound even more fictitious than fingerprint scanners, but Fujitsu has already proven it to work. It has been fiddling around with palm-vein scanning technology for a long time now, placing those gadgets in laptops such as the Lifebook E741/C and the Celsius H730. Laptops such as these have been put to use by banks in Japan, Fujitsu's home town. Now it is working on putting that same technology on mobile devices as well, particularly smartphones.

This seems like an interesting security feature for smartphones. It makes you immediately wonder how you would implement that large of a sensor in the smartphone? For it to see your whole palm, wouldn't it need to take up the whole area behind the display? Luckily, Fujitsu has already worked that out. The tech doesn't use the same kind of sensor that a fingerprint sensor uses. Instead it utilizes near-infrared light which means you wouldn't even need to lay your palm across the phone. You could simply point your palm at the device, and it would work even from a short distance. Their latest version is the size of a postage stamp.

Source: SlashGear