A&S Mag, Taipei

Bonding Tsunami Victims with Facial Recognition

2005-01-20T14:45:00.000+08:00

Ushering in 2005 was an unforgettable experience to Edwin Yang and his colleagues. After Phuket of Thailand was ravaged by the tsunami, they went to local hospitals and temples to take images of the bodies or surviving victims.

For those four days, the director of Regal Cyber in Hong Kong and his team managed to capture some three hundreds images. And combined with the contribution of database from the International Victim Coordination Center at Phuket, the company established a facial recognition web site to assist families in searching for their missing members in the catastrophe.

The web site, www.PeopleMatch.rc.tv, was set up on December 31st, 2004. It allows relatives to upload a photograph of their missing friends or family. The images will then be checked against a growing database of the faces of surviving or dead victims.

The PeopleMatch system has the ability to place up to 1,700 unique characteristics for an individual face in its database. It will then match these points with similar points from an uploaded facial photo. Upon verification, the system will call up a set of photos that matches the victim.

Due to the factors such as facial injuries, as long as reaching to a recognition rate of 65 percent, the web site will notify the respective families immediately, Yang told A&S.

He informed that four matches were successfully done in the first week of January. And the database has collected up to 1,300 facial images just within the first few days after the Internet set-up.

In addition to setting up the PeopleMatch’s platform, Regal Cyber partnered with local distributors of Viisage and Cognitec in Hong Kong. The two companies supplied facial recognition solutions for free for back-end systems.

“In this case, facial recognition is the most convenient tool to help the sufferers. It is a much faster alternative than DNA or tooth identification,” he stated. And indeed, the biometric technology has offered hope in the natural disaster.

Tapping onto Facial Recognition

2005-01-20T14:44:00.000+08:00

Facial recognition industry looks set to achieve continuing growth this year. However, vendors said that there are still some issues to be ironed out before it can embark on full-scale growth.

The worldwide market of facial recognition applications this year is expected to experience continuing growth.

The most significant development in 2004 was the progress made by the ISO SC37 working groups, which worked on the standardization of biometrics in travel documents, an official with Cognitec, a German facial recognition company, informed A&S.

“This development, initiated and supported by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is opening up one of the most important business areas for biometrics in the near future,” the official claimed.

And the positive outlook is expected to go on in 2005.

“In the area of facial recognition, we have seen several technological advancements during the last 12 months. This year, we will have to bring these improvements to the market. Another fast-developing area is happening in the mobile biometric devices, where we have seen a lot of progress,” said the official.

The government sector will apply this technology widely in 2005 as there are currently a number of initiatives within homeland security and international travel security taking place.

Facial recognition technology is needed for issuance of travel documents and verification of biometric solutions containing facial biometric data. Therefore, electronically-readable travel documents will boost the implementation of facial recognition applications.

“Once biometrics of travel documents is perceived as a commodity, we expect growth to take off in other areas as well,” the official added.

Anton Kuip, a biometric expert with Nedap’s security management team, agreed. He said that the technology will be used in passports and the first ISO standard is expected to take off this year. Nedap is a Netherlands outfit delivering solutions for security management, access control and biometric identification.

“This will most likely promote the use of facial recognition in general,” he stated.

Joining Forces with CCTVs

Indeed, the revolution of the industry is underway with the participation of CCTV vendors.

“Facial recognition is an interesting technology. It was introduced along with the development of CCTVs,” commented Jison Hsu, biometric solutions division manager of PenPower Technology Ltd. It is a Taiwan-based company offering recognition technologies including handwriting, voice, facial recognition, as well as wireless communication.

“Nowadays, surveillance cameras can be everywhere. People are starting to change their mindset that although cameras do invade their privacy to a certain level, they have become a part of everyday lives for better security,” he claimed.

As surveillance cameras at the streets, buildings and public places become more prevalent, people will get used to being watched at all times. This will spur the growth of facial recognition solutions as people are more at ease with them.

“The combination of facial recognition with CCTVs will definitely be the future trend,” Hsu stated.

Cognitec seconded, adding that facial recognition can be integrated in existing video surveillance application and supports security officers with hint about suspect persons that are previously enrolled. “This is the most challenging face recognition technology application and still at the very beginning,” an official said.

According to Hsu, CCTV systems nowadays can manage to cope with the requirements of general surveillance. However, it doesn’t mean that CCTV vendors therefore have a lower entry barrier into the biometric field.

These makers encounter numerous obstacles when exploring the market. The issues to be resolved are the existing problems of CCTVs: hardware, data storage, compression technologies, transmission speed and picture-capturing under various lighting conditions. To cite an example, CCTV players have been working hard to capture images under extremely dim lighting environment in recent two years.

However, facial recognition will be a valuable add-on feature to CCTVs. It is an extra intelligent function that says the system will be able to capture human faces and even identify the faces, he added.

Furthermore, CCTV solutions will become more powerful with the integration of facial biometrics. For instance, it will stop recording when no human are present within the cameras’ viewing areas, and will record at a slower speed simultaneously, thus cutting down data storage in return.

To his understanding, not every CCTV vendor has jumped into the biometric rush. They might have sensed the trend, and started to treat it as a long-term investment and do not expect fast adoption.

“But facial recognition functionality will set them apart from others who do not have this intelligence,” Hsu cautioned, advising CCTV and biometric-solution providers to form synergies to complement each other for the research and development.

Time for 3D?
It is becoming well acknowledged that 3D (three dimensional) facial recognition technology yields more accurate performance than the commonly-used 2D approach because 3D measures the depth of a face.

Because of the additional depth measurement, 3D is robust to facial pose variations and illumination changes, both of which are key factors that degrade the accuracy of 2D.

According to Kuip, most leading facial recognition vendors, including Viisage, A4 Vision and Identix, are now working on 3D.

“This technology allows the user more comfort and flexibility as it does not require looking straight into the camera. It can also recognize the faces of people passing by, thus enabling a faster people flow,” he explained.

As in the case of Cognitec, it has also been investing in the development of 3D facial recognition algorithms.

According to the company, 3D promises more robustness of biometric comparison against lighting and pose variations compared to 2D. However, the introduction of 3D requires complete new data gathering and will therefore be more expensive.

Hsu added that though 3D offers a more precise recognition rate, its computational loading is huge. It is thus impossible, at least for now, to provide “real time” recognition as the process will take much longer time than 2D.

As such, 2D is still the mainstream of the industry with 3D in the emerging stage.

Moving Forward
Compared to other forms of biometric applications such as fingerprint, iris recognition, or palm recognition, facial recognition is the only one that requires no contact with sensors at all.

However, “biometric-based recognition technologies inevitably have certain limitations,” Hsu noted. Compared to fingerprint--its more established biometric counterpart, the facial technology still has some distance to catch up with.

“The first applications for tracing wanted faces were unfortunately not very successful to this date. But the input from an automatic facial recognition system is always a helpful support for any kind of video surveillance system as facial technology offers intelligent tracking,” added Kuip.

Currently there is a great interest from airports in the use of facial recognition for both access control and video surveillance. One example of a situation in which it would be useful is passenger recognition at the moment of exiting an airplane. These passengers would then be traced again when appearing at the airport customs a while later.

However, the technology is not reliable enough yet for such applications at the moment.

Another area in which demand is surfacing quite strongly is in sports, for example checking the faces of fans at the entrance of football stadiums to trace or block particular persons, he continued.

As early in November 2002, Sydney International Airport had taken the lead in the industry by deploying new automated border crossing system with facial technology.

With this SmartGate system supplied by Cognitec, some 3,000 Qantas aircrew members arriving at the primary line, instead of presenting their passport to a customs clearance officer, place their passport on a reader, and look at a camera.

The gate opens after customs-and-immigration checks have been automatically performed by the system with facial features compared to the stored templates. The whole process is said to take less than 10 seconds.

Therefore, this process greatly enhances efficiency and at the same time maintains a high quality of secure border control.

Hsu envisions that such application cases which offer convenience and security will continue to mushroom at a larger scale this year.

“And as they become more commonplace, more people will consider deploying CCTVs with facial recognition in the next two to three years,” he summed up.

Hot Fingerprint Trends in 2005

2004-12-22T11:12:00.000+08:00

What are the major fingerprint-recognition trends going to be in 2005? Vendors share their views with A&S.

By Jason Tan

Historically, fingerprint biometrics has been used as a forensic tool for law-enforcement agencies.

However, “more commercial applications of biometrics will continue to develop over the next few years. Applications that replace passwords and personal-identification numbers (PINs) will proliferate in the market to a greater degree in 2005,” said Colin Soutar, chief technology officer at Bioscrypt, a provider of fingerprint technology based in Canada.

Biometrics is seen as becoming a tool for user authentication on portable devices for many applications.

More Fingerprint-enabled Gadgets
As portable devices are used to protect or access assets, the need for biometrics authentication will increase to provide security, convenience and non-repudiation. These portable devices will be both existing devices, such as cell phones and PDAs, as well as new dedicated biometrics modules, he said.

His views are seconded by Karl Audaert, regional sales manager at Upek Inc., a fingerprint security-solution provider based in the U.S. with offices in Singapore and the Czech Republic.

For consumer and corporate markets, Audaert envisions notebooks with fingerprint features making stronger waves in 2005.

According to him, notebooks embedded with fingerprint authentication are not something new, but in line with IBM, which jumped onto the bandwagon during the last quarter of 2004, other makers will certainly follow suit.

“IBM is a well-known brand with a good image for its high-end notebooks and superior quality. Its participation in biometrics will cause quite a stir,” said Audaert. The company expects that fingerprint recognition will become standard to all notebooks by 2008.

In addition, fingerprint USB flash drives are expected to be “in” as well.

Current USB flash drives are capable of providing storage of up to one gigabyte, and as storage expands, users are inclined to store more data such as e-mail. In order to prevent loss of valuable information, adding fingerprint protection is definitely the way to go, said Audaert.

When bundled with software, fingerprint USB flash drives can serve as a means to access PCs so users need no PINs. “This will go beyond basic functions of common USBs,” concluded Audaert.

In 2004, a handful of mobile phones with fingerprint-recognition features were introduced. Audaert, however, does not think they will sell like hot cakes in the market this year.

He said that most consumers use phones mainly to make calls, and are less concerned about phone security as opposed to when they use notebooks. Unless telecommunications operators come up with more mobile commercial services, such as wireless banking, it will probably take another two years for fingerprint phones to grab attention.

Governing Biometrics
"One major trend in 2005 will be the use of fingerprint technology in combination with national identity cards,” stated Christer Bergman, chief executive officer and president of Precise Biometrics, a Sweden-based provider of biometrics security solutions using fingerprint authentication.

“Here, we are seeing more and more projects asking for Match-on-Card--the technology where fingerprint templates are stored on smartcards and smartcard processors are used for comparison. Hence, fingerprint templates never leave the smartcards. This is desirable both in terms of user privacy and overall system performance,” said Bergman.

Another area to focus on will be International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)-related documents and border-crossing documents such as passports and visas that require biometrics.

“The global driver for these projects is fear of terrorism and identity theft. Technological challenges include pushing for wider deployment, while remaining easy-to-use, secure and reliable,” he explained.

The main market remains government projects. “We see both the health-care and financial sectors picking up as mandatory regulations are implemented.”

Echoing his view, Audaert added that Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore are among the Asian countries that have adopted biometrics in passports and national identity cards or have plans to do so soon.

Audaert cited MyKad--the Malaysian identity card, which incorporates features such as fingerprint biometrics and medical history, while serving as a driving license, ATM and electronic purse. The government plans to use it even as a travel document to replace passports for border transit among neighboring countries.

It is compulsory for citizens above 12 years old to have a MyKad by end of this year; everyone will, therefore, be carrying a smartcard with them. This presents huge opportunities to develop more applications, added Audaert.

However, there must be standards for all countries using biometrics passports or smart identity cards to ensure compatibility on different infrastructures. As more nations embark on similar initiatives, ensuring that a standards body oversees the process is imperative.

Bridging the Gap
Soutar elaborated, “The ability of vendors to support varied fingerprint sensors that will be encountered in a mixed physical and logical access environment will be extremely important.”

As the biometrics industry and market continue to mature, product vendors will be required to conform to industry standards of interoperability, performance and functional specifications. This is especially true for government procurement of biometrics technologies.

“Vendors who have invested in standards development through processes, such as INCITS M1, ISO and IEC SC37 for biometrics, and the Common Criteria, will begin to realize dividends on their investments over the next five years,” said Soutar.

Alex Hsieh, project manager of financial business department at Arachnoid Biometric Identification Group (ABIG), added that as sensors from different brands operate on various algorithms, fingerprint enrollment done on Company A’s sensor might not be able to process verification with a sensor from Company B.

As such, it is critical for vendors to deploy the “Cross Fingerprint Sensor Matching Technology”, which is capable of verifying fingerprint on sensors of numerous brands, making verification and enrollment a breeze to the users.

“Introduction of technologies, such as our Bio-One solution, will create demand,” claimed Hsieh.

In addition, he predicts that swipe sensors will take center stage this year.

According to Hsieh, a handful of gadgets with fingerprint-recognition features launched in 2004 are using swipe sensors. Take Pantech’s GI100 handset, IBM’s Thinkpad T42 series notebook and HP’s iPAQ h5450 for example.

Compared with old-generation sensors, swipe sensors offer more precise recognition at costs that are 50 percent lower. Many manufacturers have, thus, jumped into the rush of producing swipe sensors.

In addition, computer-peripherals manufacturers are also seriously considering embedding fingerprint-chip modules into more gadgets to add value.

Hsieh noted that ABIG--a Taiwanese biometrics technology provider--has collaborated with chip makers and hardware companies to develop more swipe sensor-embedded devices. Some are ready for launch in the first quarter of 2005.

“We will launch our latest biometrics solution, Comprehensive Biometric Identification Solution (CBIS), in the first quarter,” said Hsieh. “CBIS will include Bio-One and a robust matching engine to support search speeds from 40,000 to 2,000,000 matches per second.”

Such solutions can be applied to many major domains, such as border security, civil identity, financial institutes and banking, access control and corporate applications.

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BOX:

Responding to Market Needs
Using a very small physical area, fingerprint is the only biometrics technology that can be added inexpensively to devices such as computers or portable electronics as well as equipment, such as automated teller machines or time clocks.

The desire for increased security and convenience will continue to escalate heightening demand. As with any new technology, proof of performance, interoperability and product quality will spur adoption, said Colin Soutar, chief technology officer at Bioscrypt.

Bioscrypt’s technology is targeted broadly across industry sectors with particular emphasis on commercial deployments or non-AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) markets, explained Soutar.

“By having a broad range of products to meet the requirements of a diverse set of applications, the response from our installed base has been excellent and we plan on continuing to leverage our history of successes to further penetrate the market,” he asserted.

“Our success is based on solid offerings, robust finger-pattern-recognition algorithms, strong customer support and assistance, and dedication to developing competitive technology,” said Soutar.

The company will launch products in 2005 that maintain its competitive position in the biometrics industry. Innovative and quality product offerings are key to the success of biometrics vendors, said Soutar, without revealing product details.

In addition, it will continue to work closely with distribution channels in bringing products to the market. “For licensing and logical-access applications, we will provide direct sales and marketing support for our products,” he said.

To respond to market trends, Precise Biometrics plans to launch a couple of more products and solutions initiatives during the course of 2005.

According to Christer Bergman, chief executive officer and president at Precise Biometrics, these initiatives will support the company’s Match-on-Card strategy in large smart ID-card projects.

“This means that we will see products having an even more secure architecture that are easier to use. We will also see initiatives in the multi-biometrics area,” said Bergman.

To cause a bigger impact on the market, Precise Biometrics will stick with its current marketing strategy, which is to work closely with major partners around the world to support major end-user initiatives.

Biometrics Shifting into Non-governmental Sector

2004-12-22T11:10:00.000+08:00

Biometric applications are expected to continue to cause a stir in the security industry in 2005.

By Jason Tan

More biometric implementations for non-governmental projects were taking off worldwide in 2004.

Among all, LG Electronics and Fujitsu unveiled fingerprint-enabled mobile phones with enhanced security to cater to the consumers’ needs. Over in Singapore, patrons of Mary Chia Beauty & Slimming Specialist started to use fingerprints to open up lockers to secure belongings.

As such, will non-governmental sectors overtake government to become the major biometric adopters this year?

“The government sector is and will continue be the largest segment in the biometric industry due to the increasing security measures of post 9/11 and new laws that mandate biometric implementation in the U.S. for instance,” pointed out Prianka Chopra, Frost & Sullivan’s biometrics, smartcards and security program manager.

However, on the non-governmental side, one must not rule out the immense potential from the commercial/enterprise and consumer markets in the future. “Within enterprise, certain verticals such as the financial and healthcare sectors are likely to be more inclined to adopt biometric technologies,” she said.

Biometric technologies can be used for a variety of applications such as physical access control and network security in these markets. The driving forces include legislations that mandate the security of individual records, cost savings and convenience from automating business processes, she added.

There are also some efforts underway to use biometric devices within automobiles. Growth drivers include the steadily declining prices of biometric devices and the increased awareness of consumers on biometrics, she informed.

Seconded this, Art Stewart, vice president of business development at AuthenTec, said that although government-related biometric applications have drawn most of the attention, the fastest growing segment has actually been in the consumer biometric arena.

Rising of Consumer Biometric Products
“Today, there are more than 4 million consumer biometric products in use, primarily in cell phones, notebook computers and PC peripherals. We definitely expect this trend to continue in 2005,” he claimed.

This is largely driven by the changes in cost, size and accuracy of biometric technologies, as well as the increased consumer demand of better security and convenience in their devices.

On the technology side, biometric fingerprint sensors that were US$40 and about one inch square five years ago are now under $6 and smaller than a pencil point, Stewart informed.

Advances in the technology have also made these same sensors much more accurate, with new sub-surface sensors capable of reading virtually any fingerprint, under nearly any conditions, he added.

On the consumer demand side, the need to protect computers and mobile phones from fraud and theft has led to calls for higher level of security. The traditional password approach has become too cumbersome, thus making biometrics a perfect means of providing both convenience and security.

A recent survey commissioned by AuthenTec shows that 63 percent of PC owners and 71 percent of handset users in the U.S., would pay extra to have a fingerprint sensor added to their devices to enjoy a new level of convenience and security.

“We believe this will likely be the same around much of the world,” he asserted.

Indeed, the biometric market is set to fly off to greater heights.

According to Frost & Sullivan's recent biometric research, the global biometric market will record US$2,075 million in 2006, nearly seven-fold from $303 million in 2003. The market is projected to hit $3,548 million in 2009.

According to Chopra, the majority of the market revenues will come from the government as well as travel and transportation vertical markets. However, a good part of them will be contributed by physical access control, time and attendance, transactional authentication (at the retail/ATM) from the commercial/enterprise sector.

“The adoption of biometrics--particularly fingerprint biometrics--will continue to grow significantly in 2005 and beyond,” added Stewart.

This will be driven by more PC and handset manufacturers incorporating biometrics into the equipment as a regular feature. With the tremendous volume of mobile phones and computers sold worldwide each year, this will create tremendous opportunities for fingerprint sensors.

AuthenTec said that Asia will sustain its lead as the largest and fastest growing region for biometrics this year, followed by the U.S. and Europe.

Currently, 70 to 80 percent of the consumer biometric use is in Asia--primarily in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

“We believe that these markets will keep on expanding, with significant opportunities for growth in China, especially in the cell phone market. In addition, we expect the biometric market will begin to take off in the U.S. and Europe beginning this year,” he informed.

Fingerprint Still Rules
This year, fingerprint application is expected to be the highest volume, fastest growing form of biometrics among others, as what happened in the past.

“This is due to the fact that it is the only practical solution for high-volume consumer applications. Many of the other biometric technologies are typically involved in larger, more expensive solutions requiring larger systems to operate,” informed Stewart.

Fingerprint biometrics will flourish in the existing consumer market, and be designed into an increasing number of applications that are still on the drawing table. This does not even include several other market opportunities, such as automotive and access control, which also pose large opportunities when they begin to boom, he said.

Chopra also forecasts that fingerprint recognition will continue its dominance in the biometric industry, though its market share will decrease over time.

According to her, fingerprint will still be deployed in all types of applications, including physical access control, transactional authentication, ID confirmation in government projects, wireless device security and others.

On the other hand, facial recognition and iris recognition are slated to gain more momentum, as they are expected to reap in market share particularly in the travel-and-transportation vertical market.

In the case of hand geometry, this technology will maintain its forte in the physical access control and time-and-attendance markets. Voice and signature biometrics will focus on automating business processes in the commercial segment.

Boosting the Uptake
In general, the major drivers for enlarged use of biometrics this year will be bigger adoption by electronic manufacturers, and rising demand by consumers.

“Biometrics is still at its early stage of adoption, and has gained tremendous traction in 2004, which should continue into 2005 with more cell phone, PC manufacturers and service providers jumping onto the rush,” Stewart stated.

Once consumers are exposed to this convenient form of security, they will demand the feature in future purchases. “The major challenge will be in gaining the additional footing that will help make biometrics more mainstream and a must-have in every type of electronic device,” he said.

In Chopra’s views, major drivers for the biometric market include rising awareness and exposure of biometrics; laws and mandates to implement these applications in the government segment, as well as opportunities from the travel-and-transportation vertical such as airports.

However, privacy concerns are still a major deterrent, and the adoption depends on real-world performance of biometrics which could be different from vendor claims. In addition, needs for continuous technical advancements require large investments, and issues such as high cost of biometric devices relative to alternative technologies need to be addressed, she pointed out.

IBM Launches Fingerprint Notebook

2004-12-09T13:26:00.000+08:00

IT giant IBM has recently introduced a fingerprint reader packaged into its newest notebook, the ThinkPad T42 series.

Only a finger scan is required to gain log-on access to the portable computer and its contents, delivering simplified access to password-protected personal and financial information, Web sites, documents and e-mail.

Located on the wrist rest below the arrow keys near the lower right edge of the notebook, the fingerprint reader is combined with an embedded security subsystem to provide a layer of built-in security.

Citing reports, Laurence Hwang, general manager of personal systems group of IBM Taiwan, said at a recent product launch that there are over 300,000 cases of stolen laptops reported each year in the U.S. alone. As such, securing confidential data in the notebook has become imperative.

The ThinkPad T42 series has incorporated biometrics into the notebooks, not only resolving the issues of remembering lengthy passwords, but also provides enhanced security, he claimed.

The laptop is able to offer up to 21 registered templates of authorized users, and they can register any of the fingers, Hwang added. A user must swipe his or her finger across the small, horizontal sensor to log on to the computer.

According to IBM, this type of fingerprint reader captures more data than a traditional picture-capture window. It scans more of the fingertip’s surface area, helping to prevent misidentification.

The swiping and recognition process is said to take less than one minute. In the same timeframe, multiple users can be registered with a scan and added to the approved boot sequence in much the same fashion as shared users register their passwords in Windows.

Taiwanese computer maker Acer was the first in the industry to introduce notebook with fingerprint authentication four years ago. However, IBM expects to stir up the market by unveiling its first model of biometrics-enabled laptop.

“The uniqueness of our product is that the fingerprint templates are incorporated onto our proprietary security chip but not the hard disk, which has risks of being invaded by unauthorized parties,” stressed Albert Lu, associate marketing manager of personal systems group.

With the chip already providing the utmost security to the laptops, the fingerprint feature will add on extra level of “convenience” to users as they can just make good use of their fingers to gain access, he said.

The ThinkPad T42 is mainly targeted at enterprise and heavy users. Lu revealed that IBM does not rule out the possibility of bundling the fingerprint function into other lower-end models, depending on the market response and arising needs.

Unlocking PC with Penpower’s FaceMetrix

2004-12-09T13:25:00.000+08:00

Forget about the lengthy passwords for PC logon. Penpower Technology Ltd. has recently launched the FaceMetrix Logon, a software for PC users to utilize facial recognition to access the computers.

Users just need to take a look at the webcam, and the computer will recognize its master showing up and unlocks itself immediately, said the Taiwan-based company.

For a start, users have to get a USB PC camera with a minimum resolution of 380,000 pixels ready. The computers must be equipped with Intel Pentium III or above, and have a minimum of 128 MB RAM.

To enroll, they need to rotate the face in front of the camera and 20 facial prints will be collected for building facial models. When users log on, they need not to enter a username or passwords, but to face the camera and the computer will extract facial characteristics from the viewing area and find a match. The search will run throughout all enrollees in the database and look for a match in less than one second.

According to William Law, sales engineer of Penpower’s solution integration department, the FaceMetrix Logon is capable of acting as a surveillance software as well. It will automatically take photos of those unauthorized attempting to access the PCs in the viewing area, and record the time. This will allow follow-up examination and tighten the data security.

Compared to the computers which embed fingerprint recognition to replace passwords, facial recognition offers the benefits of non-direct physical contact, thus reducing the chances of ruining the equipment, he added.

“Facial recognition has mainly been used for access control in the past. We see a trend of this biometrics application becoming more involved with people’s daily life this year,” he claimed. As such, the company aims to boost the adoption of facial recognition in the consumer segment by introducing the FaceMetrix Logon.

[Penpower/Taiwan]
E-mail: sales@penpower.net

Johnson Controls Flying Higher

2004-11-24T10:25:00.000+08:00

In the results of the second World Top 50 Security Companies, Johnson Controls made the ranks of the Top 10 based on its fire-and-security revenues in 2003. How did the systems integrator reap such high revenues amid fierce competition? It shared its formula for success with A&S.

By Jason Tan

"We leverage our local presence with thousands of existing customer relationships to extend our position in the security market,” said Steve Thompson, director of marketing, Johnson Controls Fire & Security Solutions.

This is one of the reasons why the company, a supplier of automotive interior systems and facility management and control, was able to achieve revenue growth of 41.8 percent for fire and security solutions and services in 2003.

To date, it has 330 sales and technical contracting offices around the world to deliver global solutions with local service. In addition, it has the ability to serve customers with a broad portfolio of facility-related technology and service offerings, from safety and security to comfort and operational efficiencies.

“Our measure of success is customer satisfaction and long-term relationships. We offer services to help our customers develop safety and security master plans that result in practical, defendable and affordable safety and security policies, practices and systems,” said Thompson.

By assuming responsibility for all building systems and services, total cost of ownership can be reduced while overall facility performance is enhanced, he said.

Direct Factory Services

What differentiates the company from other security-solution providers, said the company, is the ability to provide a full range of direct factory services to meet customer needs. These services include site surveys, professional training, value-engineered designs, project management, maintenance contracts and onsite and in-factory service.

If and when periodic maintenance is required, customers know that they can rely on its expert service engineers to maintain security-system integrity.

Customers are also able to choose from a variety of flexible service plans, ranging from multiyear, onsite preventative maintenance to simple factory repair of user-maintained equipment.

To maintain growth, the U.S.-based company has long tapped into diverse market segments such as hospitality, airports, colleges and universities, financial services and general office buildings.

“With the size and history of our business, we do not limit our activities to specific segments. We follow customer demand wherever it happens to be. Next year, we expect to see broad-based growth in most segments, especially government, transportation, industrial and health care,” said Thompson.

Overall integration service, he revealed, is the largest single segment of its security business.

“Next year, we expect to see continued growth in our technology offerings with one highlight being our new video-surveillance offering: Johnson Controls Digital Vision Network (DVN).”

The DVN is a family of video-recording and analysis products, providing convenient archiving, search and playback of surveillance video with options for sophisticated video-content analysis. Software algorithms can watch all video for events that have been described by users.

The network will dramatically improve video surveillance from simple four-camera digital recording to network-based systems that can search hours of video for violations and events.

“Our new DVN video-surveillance offering is currently being launched globally. It responds to strong market demand for a digital-video product family with high-end video-analysis features that are cost-effective and easy to use,” said Thompson.

Growing Strong

With a slew of new offerings in the pipeline, Johnson Controls is confident about future growth.

Its recently-announced 2004 financial results revealed that sales hit US$26.6 billion, 17 percent higher than the $22.6 billion in the year ended Sept. 30, 2003.

And that’s not all. Sales will increase 8 percent to 10 percent and net income will record double-digit growth in 2005, predicted John Barth, chairman and chief executive officer, in the company’s latest release.

Controls Group sales alone are projected to achieve the same percentage growth next year with most of the increase associated with sales of technical services and facilities management to the non-residential buildings market.

“Consuming” Biometrics

2004-11-17T13:41:00.000+08:00

Biometrics is no longer a futuristic concept as more consumer-related deployments take place. In this issue, A&S features four such installations which have, or will become, a reality.

By Jason Tan

Patrons of Mary Chia Beauty & Slimming Specialist in Singapore were surprised this April when they had to use their fingerprints to open lockers.

Fingerprint Lockers
With the totally self-administered Biolocker system, patrons need only press the register button and scan their fingerprints. Enrolment and identification takes just a second or two and the system randomly assigns lockers.

Patrons then place belongings in lockers. When they are ready to leave, they place fingers on lockers again to retrieve property. All this is done without keys or PINs.

Moreover, patrons can choose whether to delete fingerprints after each use. As the solution has a supervisory over-write function, center supervisors may log onto the system and clean up fingerprint data at the end of the day, allowing new patrons to use it again the next morning.

Even though it cost US$48,365, Mary Chia decided to introduce biometrics technology to its seven outlets anyway to offer customers enhanced security, said Angelia Tan, sales director of IDLink Systems Pte. Ltd.

IDLink is the solution provider of Mary Chia’s project and is a biometrics house headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Malaysia, India and the Middle East.

The project started in February, with the first commercial rollout in April. To date, five outlets have deployed the Biolocker solution; implementation for the sixth is scheduled for next February.

After trying out the biometrics lockers, the majority of customers find the new mechanism pleasing and convenient as they do not need to carry keys to treatment rooms. Furthermore, it reduces the risks of one key opening up multiple lockers, explained Tan.

However, nontechnical-savvy clients did feel slightly intimidated by the new solution at the initial stage, said Tan. But after a few visits, they get acquainted.

This benefits Mary Chia as it projects a professional image by conveying the message “customers are very important to us,” claimed Tan.

Not content with the slimming center, IDLink is targeting the service industry, including gymnasiums, country clubs and fitness centers.

“We are currently working with potential clients, and hope to establish more reputable references next year. It is a challenging task as the startup cost is not low, considering the fact that country clubs and fitness centers can have hundreds of lockers,” observed Tan.

She stressed, however, that the money is well invested as self-administered biolockers help deployers cut manpower costs, not to mention saving money for key replacement. More important, secure solutions saves the company from getting a bad reputation if something is stolen.

“Biometrics is generally deployed in corporate environments for access control. No one expected that biometrics would find uses in the service industry. This is significant as it convinces people that even such high technologies can go as layman as Mary Chia,” concluded Tan.

Renting DVDs with a Flick of the Thumb
Meanwhile, Play! Entertainment, a Singapore video-rental company established in September, recently introduced biometrics technology to its four DVD rental kiosks. Play! is essentially a kiosk that dispenses DVDs for rental and has the added innovation of automated identification-card registration booths.

On top of that, it has added biometrics at a wider level by using it as an identification tool fixated on kiosks. To begin, customers must first register with Play! by scanning their ICs into kiosk machines. These store information like thumbprints and date of birth. Whenever customers rent DVDs, all they need to do is to scan thumbprints. Images are then compared with those on ICs. One advantage is ability to verify client age, ensuring that restricted movies stay out of minor hands.

“In Singapore, videos are classified NC16 and M18; retailers are responsible for ensuring compliance. At registration points, we incorporated biometrics to capture registrant thumbprints and match these against the Singaporean IC to confirm identity,” a company official told A&S. “After the membership is processed, members go to kiosks, scans thumbs and we recognize them and allow access to NC16 and M18 DVDs.”

So far, “The response has been unexpectedly good; we have reached more than our forecasted number of members after seven weeks in operation,” claimed the official. There are currently four Play! kiosks in Singapore. Holding 700 DVDs each, the kiosks have between 100 and 150 titles of the latest movie releases--a mixture of Hollywood and Asian tastes. They are located at Parkway Parade, Caltex House, North Point Shopping Centre and West Mall. The company intends to add two more kiosks by year end.

Play!’s thumbprint-recognition process was developed by Upek Inc., a fingerprint security-solution provider based in the U.S., with offices in Singapore and the Czech Republic.

“In this partnership, we provided TouchChip solutions with our biometrics readers and algorithms to match fingerprint printed on Singapore ICs,” explained Karl Audaert, regional sales manager. In addition to the Play! deployment, the company’s solution has been deployed by IBM in notebooks to replace password log-on.

IBM Introduces Fingerprint Laptop
In October, IBM introduced a fingerprint reader built into its newest ThinkPad laptop, the ThinkPad T42. A finger scan is required to gain log-on access to the portable computer and its contents, delivering simplified access to password-protected personal and financial information, Web sites, documents and e-mail.

The fingerprint reader is combined with an embedded security subsystem to provide a layer of security that is built-in, but not bolted-on. Registered templates of authorized users are stored on security chips within scanner devices. Fingerprint readers are located on wrist rests below arrow keys near the lower right edge of notebooks. Users swipe their fingers across small, horizontal sensors to log on to computers, software applications, Web sites and databases.

According to IBM, this type of fingerprint reader captures more data than traditional picture-capture windows. It scans more of fingertip surface areas, helping prevent misidentification. The swiping and recognition process takes less than one minute. In the same timeframe, multiple users can be registered with scans and added to approved boot sequences in much the same fashion as shared users register passwords in Windows.

“With IBM jumping on the bandwagon, it will stir up the market so more vendors are expected to follow suit,” said Audaert.

As recently as two years ago, the company had worked with Samsung on fingerprint notebooks. Since then, it has roped in more clientele, such as Micron PC, Gateway and Asustek, for similar partnerships, providing fingerprint sensor and application software. “More and more notebooks will come with fingerprint devices to secure data without need to remember passwords. This is the beauty,” stressed Audaert. In addition, system administrators will no longer need manage passwords, and this will drive down the cost of corporate password management, he claimed.

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Biometrics Keeps Handbags Safe
In England, design graduate Louise Wilson, frustrated after having her own handbag pick pocketed, used biometrics technology to give handbags enhanced security.

According to CNN, the 23-year-old is currently in talks with manufacturers about producing a line of handbags that feature the security device. It could be on shop shelves by end of next year. Wilson's anti-theft handbag works through a rechargeable battery-powered biometrics-reader device, which stores fingerprint details of registered bag owners. The device, which fits inside handbag linings, will not unlock bags until fingerprints it recognizes are touched over a discreet five centimeter scanner using technology similar to that on door-entry security systems. Once matches have been made, sensors flash green and bags open.

Wilson, who graduated from London's Brunel University in industrial design earlier this year, said women often carry "their whole lives" in their handbags and losing all or some of the contents could be devastating. "I had heard about biometrics technology and wanted to apply it to something used in everyday life," she was quoted as saying. "Being pick-pocketed or having your handbag stolen is so frustrating. It is so easy for opportunists to help themselves, especially in noisy, crowded public situations like shopping in busy streets or using public transport."

A recent survey revealed that more than 2 million British holidaymakers have had their handbags or wallets stolen while traveling abroad, said CNN. Most thefts happened in public places. Spain was the worst country, followed by France and the Netherlands, according to the survey of 1,004 adults.

Paul Turnock, design director at Brunel University's department of design, said Wilson's design had the potential to become the next must-have fashion accessory and could significantly reduce similar types of crime.

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Biometrics Set for Strong Growth
Biometrics is poised for explosive growth in network security and mobile commerce.

Three technologies in particular--fingerprint scanning, iris scanning and face recognition--have benefited most from homeland security and law enforcement activities, said Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and ubiquitous wireless at ABI Research. "Because of the market opportunities biometrics developers and vendors have been afforded in the last three years, biometrics is now moving to broader markets based on low-cost, high-volume deployments,” said Michielsen.

According to ABI Research, both silicon-based and software-based technologies will play a role. Biometrics chips for fingerprint scanners are already going into WCDMA mobile phone handsets in Korea (Korea Telecom) and Japan (NTT DoCoMo). The fingerprint scanning market alone has experienced over 300 percent growth in 2004. In addition, fingerprint scanning used to secure personal property (such as IBM ThinkPad notebooks), not only eases password problems, but also provides better security and cuts down expensive helpdesk support calls. It also finds uses in access and attendance control.

At the network level, Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn operating system includes an updated biometrics suite, and other PC makers are backing the technology. All this will drive down costs and spur further innovation in the consumer and corporate markets. “Though many deployments in the commercial and consumer markets will also look for added value in security, biometrics can also be leveraged to automate business processes in the case of enterprises, and improving convenience for consumer applications,” said Prianka Chopra, program manager of biometrics, smartcards and security at Frost and Sullivan.

For example, in some corporations where regular password changes need to be made, rather than have a helpdesk with human agents to resolve password issues, voice biometrics can be used to verify oneself and obtain new passwords. “This reduces costs in terms of human-agent time spent on password issues. An example in the consumer market is use of silicon-sweep fingerprint sensors as navigation tools used in games,” she told A&S. Compared with government and enterprise segments, the consumer market is the third, smaller market, said Chopra. “There are several applications where individual consumers can benefit from biometrics technologies such as home security and usage in automobiles for convenience by storing seat positions or favorite radio stations and mirror positions for different drivers. It includes usage of PDAs to secure access to content in cell phones.”

More Education
For biometrics applications to fully take off in the consumer market, consumer education is a challenge, pointed out Chopra. However, as usage of biometrics increases and individuals are exposed to devices in interactions with the government or at workplaces, this challenge will diminish. “Another challenge is reducing the price to make it affordable for mass consumers; the consumer market is the most price-sensitive,” noted Chopra.

Korean Players Striving to Stay on Top

2004-10-27T16:14:00.000+08:00

The International Monetary Fund has recently slashed its earlier forecast of South Korean gross domestic product from 5.5 percent to 4.6 percent, expecting the number will further slow to four percent next year. The weak sentiments have hurt the nation’s businesses, including the security industry.

By Veronica Chen, Jason Tan

For long, South Korean security manufacturers have been positioning themselves in the high-end market segments.

For instance, they are the pioneers in introducing 16-channel standalone digital video recorders (DVRs), aiming to grab a larger slice in the first-tier DVR market with the sophisticated technologies and high pricings.

However, they failed to realize that the size of high-end market is actually limited and the buyers are only a handful.

The makers started to suffer as they can not make profit without volume. In fact, the real gold mine is in the bottom of market, which is mid to low-end consisting of high potential--the market of replacing video cassette recorders (VCRs) with DVRs, said a spokesperson at Ellim.

Unfortunately, when Korean DVR makers are aware of the fact, the gold mine has been dug up by Taiwanese and some Chinese makers.

And now, Korean security players are gearing up to ensure survival.

Over-heated Local Competition

It used to be over 100 DVR manufacturers in Korea, however, there are currently only 30 to 40 including small and medium-sized players left, said Jun Minjae, general manager of D-TEG Security Co., Ltd.

“Among them, 10 to 20 of them are major players. And only five will survive in the next three years,” he noted.

Vendors can not get enough margins from local market as the competition has become too stiff, he added.

“The number of new DVR companies has reduced this year. We tried to call some of them but they are already gone. A lot of them are breaking down,” he observed.

As the sales slow, investors start to lose faith, and the financial problems begin to surface, even some big names have to deal with bankruptcy issues, Jun added.

For those who are struggling to maintain smooth capital flow, they have to reduce the pricings to clear off the old stocks before calling the game off. “They are selling DVRs to local market in a very low price, and this is breaking the market,” he stressed, estimating the prices have been slashed by 30 percent compared to last year.

The price reduction inevitably forced others to follow suit, and this has caused lose-lose situation for most of them.

Financial support is the other difficulty that Korean DVR makers encounter.

Two years ago, South Korean government has been remarkably supporting the relevant companies when DVR was just launched. Unfortunately, the support does not continue. Except the top three companies in Korea, most makers are very difficult to get money, said Jun u Yi, chief executive officer of 4NSYS and chairman of DVR Community of Korea (DVRCK).

“To solve the problem, DVRCK keeps talking to the government. We hope to line out some requirements and regulations in the domestic market to stimulate the sales of DVR. For instance, there may be enforcement to install DVRs in chain stores or other risky areas,” he said.

Head-to-head with China, Taiwan

The hurdles do not end there as China and Taiwan have traditionally been the strongest competitors to eat up Korean share in the export markets.

Carving the niche as the quality original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or original design manufacturers (ODMs) for other security companies, China and Taiwan are well-known for their hardware production.

In the case of DVRs, they seized the market by storms with the introduction of competitively priced 4-channel models.

“2004 is not a good year to Korean DVR manufacturers as a whole. We’ve faced severe challenges from Taiwan. They are very good in marketing and always focus on overseas. So they can supply suitable products in different markets and this is their competitiveness,” said Jun of 4NSYS.

“The biggest distinguish among us is the pricing and quantity. For example, when we get the inquiry from clients, we ask the volume of quantity to decide the price. But Taiwanese suppliers can always offer very competitive price even at small quantity. In terms of similar products, Taiwanese suppliers are more competitive than us,” said the spokesperson from Ellim.

“In CCTV, China has grown to be a strong competitor. Compared to four years ago, 15 percent of orders now have been taken by our counterparts in China.

“We have to give away cheap CCTV cameras to avoid the vicious competition with China. Now we only focus on high-end products, like IR dome camera with extra functions for easy installation and operation,” lamented the spokesperson.

Echoing Ellim, Kim Dae Hee, president and chief executive officer of WinnerTec Systems Co., said that Korean players have to find ways to deal with the intense rivalry.

As such, cooperation might be the way to turn the competition into a win-win situation for all of the three parties.

He suggests that Korean vendors can attempt to form technical partnership or join efforts in marketing and promotion with the Chinese or Taiwanese counterparts. For a start, WinnerTec Systems has imported mechanical components from Taiwan.

In addition to alliance, Korean vendors should not stop coming up with more sophisticated models with higher performance and technologies.

Digi-Flower’s sales manager Kathy Kim said it won’t follow in the price war but will put extra efforts into improving the product quality.

As a typical Korean DVR manufacturer which is proud of its strong research and development (R&D) team, she said that it will continue to invest heavily in R&D.

The company has a well-built team of over 25 staff, all of whom are specialized in the fields such as hardware, software and applications, which is a unique advantage to Digi-Flower.

Added Jae Won Choi, associate manager of international marketing at NeoSys, “DVR is not only a hardware product, but a combination of software and hardware. We are able to design software in-house and we offer high-spec DVRs which incorporate software solutions.”

Though Korean players generally enjoy a better reputation, the gap of hardware and software has narrowed in recent years and indeed, China and Taiwan are getting better in the software technologies.

“It is a matter of two to three years’ time that they could be on par with us. We are worried about this but right now, it is still not a threat,” claimed Tevicom Electronics Co., Ltd.’s president Jun-Kyun Dooh.

As such, who can meet the market requirements first will be the key to win, added J. S. Kan, general manager of overseas sales department at Picaso Info Communication Co., Ltd.

His comments are agreed by Chris Choi, overseas sales manager at Comart System Co., Ltd.

Although Taiwanese and Chinese solutions offer a variety of user-friendly functionalities, she asserted that Korea still has the best technology, especially in terms of high stability and superior display image in DVRs.

“Chinese vendors are notorious in imitating other people’s technology and products, we are not suitable to enter the Chinese market as we know the fate of bankruptcy,” she said.

She added that a number of players have closed their business as the result of venturing into China, whose products are popular for its low pricings.

As such, Comart System has given up on the mainland and is totally concentrating on the U.S., Europe and Russia for business growth.

Choi revealed that the U.S. is its major market contributing 50 percent to the overall turnover, while the growing Russia currently puts in 30 percent and the rest goes to Europe, mainly Poland.

Setting Eyes on Overseas

Comart is not alone in its quest to conquer overseas markets for business expansion.

Generally speaking, the U.S. and Western Europe have been the two largest export markets to Korean security manufacturers. Eastern Europe and Russia, on the other hand, are emerging to be the new promising lands full of untapped potential.

This well describes the business portfolio of WinnerTec Systems, which has the U.S. and Western Europe are the main export markets. And it is currently looking into Eastern Europe and Russia for further growth, informed its president and CEO Kim.

It is critical to conduct a thorough study on these countries before stepping in, he advised, adding that the company attempts to gain a stronger foothold by setting up strategic partnerships with local importers and distributors.

“Few big companies will survive in the tough competition. Ten to 20 percent of Korean players will disappear from the market next year. Nowadays, customers know which company is stable, and which product is good,” stressed Rhee Choong-Sup, Asian market manager of DVR sales team from Posdata.

As such, small and medium-sized outfits must find their own ways to survive, such as forming partnerships with big names, or else will face the plight of losing the business.

As Taiwanese and Chinese vendors continue to gobble up Korean share of the DVR market, Posdata has to focus on high-end market to win the battle, he said. Purely producing standalone models, Posdata is few such providers in the market that offer 16-channel standalone DVRs.

Korea failed to enter the low-end 4-channel segment with its comparatively higher priced products, and lost the market to China and Taiwan.

However, this did not deter Posdata from giving it a shot as it plans to form OEM alliance to enter the segment. Rhee revealed that it will have its first OEM partner in North America by year-end.

In future, the company might do the same for China and Taiwan, hoping to turn the competition into collaboration.

Currently, Japan is its main market, which brings in some 50 percent of revenues; tailing behind are China, Europe and Korea at 25, 15 and 10 percent respectively.

It also sees potential in Russia, Turkey and India. In fact, it has started to work in these markets two years ago and expects them to throw in more business in near term.

That’s not all, as a means to increase margins and improve sales quantity, it will venture into the system-on-chip (SoC) business in 2006.

Rhee revealed that as there are currently less than five Korean players producing the chips compatible with other companies’ products, this will present Posdata a strong advantage in future.

It is slated to begin SoC trials in late next year.

Moving Production Line to China

For some big names, moving manufacturing base to China directly is one way to confront rivals nose-to-nose.

According to Jang Youngjae, LG Electronics Inc. assistant manager of security system group, it plans to move the security production line to China early next year.

“Other enterprises have set up manufacturing bases in the mainland, we will lose out competitiveness if not coming up with resolutions in these two to three years,” he stated.

Estimated to cost around US$262,000, this new plant is expected to increase its China market revenues by 50 percent, he revealed.

This year, this Korean second conglomerate foresees to increase 30 percent of revenues from the Chinese and Taiwanese markets. Among all, cameras account for 90 percent, while the rest goes to DVRs. The proportion of DVRs will up four-fold to 40 percent in next few years, he added.

For LG’s total security business, it aims to achieve 200 percent growth rate this year, claimed its assistant manager Eric Kim.

Towards this end, it has put in a significant sum of marketing fund than last year. It attempts to set foot in every market by attending large international exhibitions to promote the offerings.

In a move to expand product ranges, it will introduce five to 10 models of new camera and DVR next year.

Meanwhile, Asung Electronics had also set up a factory in Shenzhen, China early this year to produce hardware of cameras, with its R&D base remain in Korea.

Its president Park Young-Jun informed that China not only offers low labor cost with superior quality of engineers, suppliers can easily source for components in this world’s largest manufacturing house.

However, SJ Micro-Tech Co., Ltd. thinks otherwise.

Though big corporations are starting to set up factories in China to enjoy the low pricings advantage, it has no current plans of jumping into the bandwagon, informed its president S.H. Bae.

For medium-sized companies to survive, they should find a niche in the market. It does not plan to expand the company’s size, instead utilizing outsourcing as an advantage. It thus designs the cameras itself, but chooses to outsource the assembly part.

To ensure further growth, the company does not plan to venture into DVR field either.

Its firm position seems to be working just fine as its revenue growth is estimated to reach 20 to 30 percent this year.

Adjusting Focuses

Traditionally, the security industry has focused on ensuring safety in public facilities such as airports and buildings. However, the industry is now expanding into the home market to meet the needs of individual.

The one-year-old SecuVic Systems Inc. realizes that it has to switch its focus into home segment as a method to ensure survival.

James Joo, director of overseas sales department, informed that major banks, government agencies, police stations have already adopted DVR solutions since the products became available locally.

On the contrary, demand of home segment is increasing tremendously. “Everyone only sees the big markets, but no one notices the small ones. The potential of combining of all small segments is huge,” he said.

As such, the company will move into homes by launching its first standalone DVR in November, with more higher-end models in next year’s pipeline.

According to Joo, home users prefer effective and cheaper solutions with portability and good design. It would be critical to add in networking function as users need to monitor their home or children from remote sites.

As networking function is not a new term to most vendors, SecuVic aims to stand out by offering high-speed transmission and clearer images in high resolution.

Under the weak market conditions, Unimo Technology Co., Ltd, which claims to offer high-quality cameras, is also forced to turn its focus to DVRs.

“Cameras no longer give us huge profits, as Chinese and Taiwanese vendors are aggressive in pricings,” lamented overseas business team manager S. K. Koh.

Though it is still selling the cameras in same quantity, he said, the sales volume remains flat as its major clients in North America Vicon and Tyco are not expanding. It worries him that they might instead opt for Chinese or Taiwanese vendors in future.

To ensure survival, it attempts to enter budding markets in Southeast Asia such as Malaysia or Vietnam, where the demand is rising in terms of security. He believes that clients will still go for high-priced products if the quality is outstanding.

In addition, it targets to boost its DVR revenue proportion from 30 percent to 50 percent by year-end, striking a balance with camera business.

As PC-based DVR makers no longer make profits, it will only manufacture standalone DVRs, he informed. The company currently has three models, and is considering to introduce a 16-channel, MPEG-4 solution with CDRW and USB port functionalities.

Samsung Utilizes Existing Resources to Push CCTVs

2004-10-27T16:13:00.000+08:00

An hour by subway to Suwon, a city at south of Seoul, houses Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. headquarters.

Even it is located far from the downtown, the Korean No. 1 conglomerate is not letting down its guard of tight security checks to safeguard the premises.

In the reception area, visitors are prohibited to bring in electronics devices such as digital cameras, camera phones or notebooks, and required to go through X-ray scanning for detection.

These measures clearly lay out the emphasis of Samsung on security.

However, its CCTV business has not garnered much spotlight before in the group, as the sales contribute only a small portion of revenues compared to the other business units, informed Ahn Soon-Hong, senior manager of VSS sales and marketing group of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

But he is confident that this is set to change as some of the top management officials are quite concerned about its potential now.

“We expect the security business to grow, and the social environment indicates that the industry should grow too. It is a common sense that it will be a big business. It is a matter of how and when to unleash its fullest potential and we will continue to focus on this prosperous industry,” Ahn said.

Approaching Market with Strengths

“Security is a concept of the needs of human beings, each company has its solutions to approach the concept,” he added, citing that software giant Microsoft aims to cover the concept through personal computer and networking, and camera manufacturers want to substitute analog matrix switcher with their IP or network cameras with good software solutions.

As such, the growth of the industry will be fuelled with these participations. “We are not that strong in software as Microsoft, nor in processor as Intel, but we are approaching the market with our products, system integration and digital convergence technologies,” he told A&S Magazine.

For now, its main strategy is to sell its strong brand names to the major installers and distributors in each country.

According to him, Samsung can easily utilize its existing infrastructure in Korea, such as high-speed Internet, to develop and push its IP cameras and network DVRs.

Moreover, with the laurels such as the world’s second biggest chip maker and third largest handset maker, Samsung can easily garner its strengths in consumer electronics and information technology, and apply them for its CCTV business.

“We have fair position to compete with other manufacturers,” claimed Ahn.

Growing Strong

In this year, Samsung’s CCTV business is expected to record 20 percent growth than last year, mainly from the DVR and camera line-ups.

Though DVRs are one of its fastest growing products, its time-lapse VCRs are enjoying huge sales in the U.S. projects. He expects the sales of VCRs will drop by half next year, in the course of being replaced by DVRs.

In terms of international markets, the U.S. and major European countries will be the next growth-fuelling engines to its business.

Citing reports from JP Freeman, he said China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, recording growth rate of more than 16 to 17 percent annually. In terms of size, America is the biggest to Samsung and is stably growing.

“We are watching Russia and we believe it will develop. It could be one of the future potential markets to us,” he added.

DVRs Moving into Integration

2004-10-27T16:12:00.000+08:00

Integration is now making its ways into the DVR industry, and some Korean manufacturers have had the plans to unveil products with point-of-sale (POS) or automated teller machine (ATM) compatibility.

WinnerTec Systems Co., Ltd. is the first to introduce POS DVRs as early in 2002, after which other competitors have also followed suit, claimed Jake Lim, its manager of overseas sales department. He said there are also vendors adding in the ATM functionality.

Also, the integration trend will move into home networking in the next two to three years.

At that time, the intelligent DVRs will be incorporated with biometrics features or RFID, having the capability of talking to the home appliances such as refrigerator or washing machines.

Early this year, it launched GoldenEye all-in-one DVR. This integrated solution saves the users’ hassles as it combines DVR, TV and monitor into a single machine. The company managed to clinch a deal with a Japanese client for GoldenEye and hopes to bring it to the U.S. and Europe soon.

The company, which mainly produces PC-based DVRs, has also a slew of standalone models, including a 16-channel, MPEG-4 unit to be launched by end of the year.

PC-based Versus Standalone

Although the market acceptance of standalone DVRs is picking up in Korea, it will not replace PC-based as both solutions cater to different market requirements, pointed out Kim Dae Hee, president and CEO of WinnerTec Systems.

He said that these two types of DVRs will co-exist in the market as they have specific features for different segments of the market.

The mainstream model in Korea now is still the PC-based DVRs, accounting for 70 percent of the share. It is still going to take three to five years for standalone DVRs to split the market equally with PC-based ones, he projected.

However, Chris Choi, overseas sales manager of Comart System Co., Ltd., foresees that standalone models will be the major type of DVRs in the next five years.

She said that PC-based DVRs run on Windows operating system and its instability is an issue to most users.

Comart has unveiled a mobile DVR, which is said to be a complete solution in MPEG 4 format with anti-vibration feature. It is currently talking to police stations and transportation sector for installations.

It also has plans to introduce POS DVRs, and is in the lookout for partners in this area.

Customization

Meanwhile, iCanTek has recently launched a network DVR server, which incorporates MPEG 4 compression technology, and literally can transmit and record at 120 ftp.

Furthermore, it has the function of recording during the transmission, and is specially designed for banks and convenience stores.

“Customization and integration abilities are key to sell the products. For our products, we need to develop vertical applications to collaborate with integrators. For example, we’ve been working with ATM suppliers and integrating our solution to ATM systems,” informed Michael Lee, director of marketing and sales.

For the next target, it is in search of access control partners for product development.

“We highlight the software design with professional knowledge in networking and communication for the solutions,” he claimed.

Finding a Niche in Biometrics

2004-10-27T16:11:00.000+08:00

The CCTV and DVR scenes are getting crowded in Korea, but it is still possible to find a niche in biometrics.

By Veronica Chen, Jason Tan

Biometrics market in Korea is getting bigger three to four times a year since 1999, and the trend will continue, pointed out Jay Koo, Keico Hightech, Inc’s manager of international marketing and sales team.

The majority of apartments and hotels in Korea are using magnetic cards for access control, and they will switch to proximity and biometrics smartcards soon.

In addition, he sees a merging trend of time-and-attendance applications with biometrics features in the next two years, which will present the company opportunities to gain a larger share.

However, as the competition becomes intense, it is looking into overseas for further expansion. Its major markets include Asia, Europe, the Middle East and U.S.

Keico sees potential in South America and China. According to Koo, time-and-attendance applications enjoy major share in South America, and it aims to penetrate the market with its biometrics solutions. On the other hand, it will also prepare simple and cheaper solutions for Chinese clientele.

Claimed to have 30 percent share in the biometrics access control market in Korea, Keico is yet to satisfy with only fingerprint solutions, and might venture into iris recognition by late 2005 or early 2006.

In the case of Techsphere, a vein-pattern recognition manufacturer, 70 percent of sales revenue is from overseas.

The U.S. and Japan are the major markets, informed chief executive officer Alex Choi, who is also the chairman of Asian Biometric Forum and Korean Biometric Association.

“We sell products though our partners (distributors) in the West. Mostly they are small companies, but very capable of sophisticated technology. We need to work with such partners, because they can understand our products and offer proper services to customers.”

In terms of Asian markets, it works on project basis. “We mostly work with system integrators. For example, in Singapore, we’ve been partnering with Singapore Technologies Engineering,” added Choi.

Meanwhile, started with RFID business, IDTECK Co., Ltd. decided to go into biometrics by offering clientele one-stop shopping services and is dedicated to lead in this field.

This gives the company a sturdy positioning as RFID and biometrics business has been growing gradually over the years, said sales team manager Sky DH. Park.

In accordance with the customer’s needs and market demands, it furnishes the product line-ups with basic applications such as home security and office access control that provide simple standalone locking system, to systematic applications including intelligent building systems that support network-based controllers, he asserted.

“We extend our RFID line of products to biometrics, combination of RF/PIN plus fingerprints or face to secure the system and accomplish full range of access control system,” he informed.

To date, fingerprint solutions have enjoyed high popularity, and the company sees facial recognition will be the next big thing.

“Our face recognition product features excellent recognition and stability based on our own algorithm, and it is noticed as new product among other bioengineering products. From now on, we will do the best to approach the market with multi-modal products helpful for the expansion of bioengineering industry,” Park claimed.

To meet up with the new trend, it has released Face 006 and will unveil Face 007 next year.

These two products not only are high-level access control and intelligent building automation systems, but are also time-and-attendance solutions with corporate and banking applications.

Park added that it has 17 research-and-development staff developing all solutions from scratch till the end products, and will continue to put strong emphasis on marketing.

“Our sales volume will record 100 percent growth this year and we expect the same for 2005,” claimed Park.

The company’s business is mainly distributed among Asia (35 percent), North America (30 percent), with the rest shared by South America, the Middle East and Europe.

Home Automation Demand Rising

2004-10-27T16:10:00.000+08:00

Amid the weak economic sentiments, the home automation market is still growing in Korea.

By Veronica Chen, Jason Tan

Ten years ago, only 10 to 20 percent of new apartments deployed home automation or video doorphone solutions, however, the numbers have increased to 80 to 90 percent now, informed Joon K. Park, general manager of Kocom Co., Ltd.

In addition to newly constructed apartments, he said, the demand of old buildings is picking up strong in a move to enhance home security.

As such, Kocom expects a positive business outlook this year and targets to increase its revenues by 25 percent over 2003.

Meanwhile, 90 percent of Hyundai Telecom’s business revenues are from the local scene as well.

“Home automation ties up with construction companies. We have good connection with the constructors in Korea. So our home automation products have been widely adopted in the domestic market,” said Steven H. Choi, director of overseas marketing and sales department.

Venturing Overseas

Hyundai started to export since 1999, and the major export items are still video and audio doorphones. The black-and-white video doorphone accounts for 85 percent of exports.

Its home automation solutions are only exported to China, Malaysia and the U.S. in a small amount.

“The biggest challenge in the overseas market is low awareness of home automation system. Still not many users understand the solution and the convenience it brings. The market is in need of education,” noted Choi.

To increase the sales volume, the company also offers CCTV products. By providing one-stop shopping services, it looks forward to bringing some leverage to its home automation products.

”To export home automation products, the ability of customization is critical. Mostly we work with security service providers in overseas markets. We are required to incorporate their systems into our home automation products,” he explained.

On the other hand, Commax Co., Ltd., which currently has 10 projects underway in Asia, is upbeat of the market outlook.

“Home automation demand is rising in the region and the business will be growing,” stressed Lee Jung Yup, international sales department general manager.

He said that with too many CCTV products in the market, vendors have to offer more choices of selection. As such, Commax is promoting the home automation solutions bundled with CCTV systems to the clients.

In his views, video doorphone market in Japan and Korea are getting saturated, but these products are catching up in the other countries, especially in the U.S. and Middle East, where the concept of video doorphone is new.

Meanwhile, Kocom will keep on penetrating China and Eastern Europe as they demonstrate increasing needs of home automation solutions.

Park claimed that with its 28-year of technical know-how, strong research-and- development team of 40 engineers, Kocom will continue to forge its good reputation in the industry.

In terms of product segments, video doorphone currently contributes 75 percent to its total revenues. Intercom accounts for 15 percent, CCTVs five percent and multimedia (including digital cameras and PC cameras) five percent

“Multimedia segment is quite a new business to us. We will focus more on the security products instead and we estimate the video doorphone sales will be getting bigger,” Park said.

To beef up its line-ups, it is slated to introduce many new models, with special designs and features next year. These include video doorphones in color and with picture memory on monitors.

Securing Borders with Biometrics

2004-10-26T17:30:00.000+08:00

Can biometrics technologies secure national borders? If so, which applications are best suited to the purpose? A&S Magazine finds out.

Starting in October, the U.S. government will issue visas to only those foreign citizens who have machine-readable, tamper-resistant passports.

This worldwide Biometrics Visa Program began in September last year, and all U.S. visa-issuing offices abroad are required to implement the program. It is mandatory that applicants for U.S. visas aged 14 to 80 be fingerprinted.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, there has been renewed emphasis on securing U.S. borders. Biometrics measures are being implemented to ensure not only the safety of American citizens, but also protection of foreign visitors,” said Charles Bennett, chief of the consular section at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).

AIT is one of the last few U.S. visa-issuing offices to begin collecting electronic fingerprints for immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants, he added.

Beginning in mid-September, visa applicants in AIT will need to have their two index fingers scanned in an inkless, electronic process at the start of the interview. Collecting fingerprints should add no more than one minute to the application process and, in most cases, will take only seconds.

Electronic fingerprint data will be stored in a database and be available to Department of Homeland Security immigration officers at ports of entry in the U.S. AIT claimed that biometrics visas will facilitate rapid and precise identification, as well as more secure processing of travelers.

Applicants have found that it is such a quick process, and does not affect total processing time, observed Karin Lang, chief of the nonimmigrant visa unit at AIT.

More to Come

According to Bennett, biometrics is a sophisticated technology; the technical challenge is to ensure everything is working properly.

As such, AIT had a team of experts install related solutions; the process took less than a week. After installation, the installation team stayed on site a few weeks to ensure seamless operations.

Fingerprint scanning may mean more biometrics applications in the future. “There have been discussions about increasing the number of fingerprints scanned from two to eight fingers,” said Bennett, who pointed out that false rejection rates may increase as the database grows larger; scanning more fingers will, thus, beef up accuracy.

In addition, some U.S. embassies are trying facial-recognition technology, but it is still in the experimental stage, added Lang. However, no specific timeframe has been given on these new deployments.

“The U.S. is adopting biometrics aggressively because it has been the hardest hit by terrorist acts and has to respond to it,” said Angelia Tan, sales director of IDLink Systems Pte. Ltd., a biometrics company headquartered in Singapore. The company also has offices in Malaysia, India and the Middle East.

However, other countries are also deploying similar measures, including Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, Holland and the U.K, to name a few. “I believe that Singapore is also working on this at the present, but it has not yet decided to incorporate fingerprint or facial features into the passport identification system,” said Tan.

“Implementing a protocol of such magnitude and scale nationwide and globally is not a one-day event; it is going to take a couple of years. Along the way, it will be progressive and the technology will continue to grow,” she stressed.

Rise of Facial Recognition

According to Tan, biometrics is a better way to go than signatures, PINs or cards because it involves individual body parts. As such, level of security is higher.

“It will be and has to be the trend for a nation to adopt biometrics to secure its borders,” she stated, while positing that biometrics security will eventually become an international protocol.

Though fingerprint scanning is the most convenient and economical form of biometrics, Tan explained that facial recognition is probably the best choice for homeland security.

“The advantages of facial recognition are vast compared with other forms of biometrics as it is non-intrusive. Facial recognition is acceptable across the board because it is directly verifiable with IDs and photos, and getting facial images is not as controversial as collecting fingerprints. Fingerprint collection is often viewed as a form of criminal-offense protocol,” she concluded.

With the upgrade to newer three-dimensional (3-D) facial-recognition technology, national identification will become much more in-depth especially in getting 3-D images to match individual photos; it will be the dominant application in the future, Tan added.

On the other hand, use of both facial and fingerprint technologies to secure national borders is likely as well since this type of double security and authentication will be almost impossible to foul, said Tan.

Agreeing with Tan, Alfred Sng, general manager of Ingersoll Rand’s security and safety division for South Asia, said fingerprint scanning is still delicate.

Machine false-rejection rates are comparatively higher as people may have sweaty or oily fingers, and this can cause delays. As such, other technologies, such as iris recognition and hand geometry, are possible candidates for center stage, said Sng.

Iris recognition, said Sng, has the advantage in that there is no direct contact between eyes and scanner, while hand-geometry readers have been proven a robust 3-D technology able to work under extreme environments.

Authorities always look at verification speed, features and ease of use when employing biometrics solutions. As such, installation of dual biometrics solutions will offer an even higher level of authorization, Sng noted.

“You must have systems, which are both effective and efficient. A lot of people are looking into system effectiveness but neglecting efficiency,” he stressed.

Challenges

Hurdles, however, remain.

The challenges are to convince and educate the public on biometrics. The technology is generally misconceived as being very expensive and unreachable, said Tan, while clarifying that this is no longer true as costs have dropped dramatically during the past five years. It is now more economical to implement a biometrics solution than a common card-and-PIN one.

“As terrorist threats persist, people are more aware of the benefits of biometrics. In two to three years’ time, it will be in everybody’s book.”

Her sentiments are supported by Helen Chua, director of the systems integration group at NEC Solutions Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.

“With any form of biometrics, people have to be comfortable because privacy is a concern. It is a privacy-versus-protection issue,” she said.

Terrorist acts have made people realize that it is better to protect themselves and compromise on privacy to a certain extent. Over time, these challenges will diminish as biometrics becomes part of people’s everyday lives, Chua added.

In Sng’s view, though, biometrics has yet to take off fully in border control, at least for now.

Authorities, including immigration and customs personnel, need to find better ways to manage identity.

Homeland security involves two countries and with the massive numbers entering and leaving, there must be seamless communication and cooperation for successful implementation, Sng advised.

ATI aims to make waves with fingerprint ATMs

2004-09-27T16:49:00.000+08:00

“In the past, it was hard to push our biometrics solutions to banks without complete, integrated end-products,” said Alex Hsieh, project manager of the Financial Business Department at Arachnoid Technology Inc. (ATI), a total biometrics-solution provider in Taiwan.

The company encountered refusals when pushing its solutions to local financial institutions in past years.

However, this is set to change as ATI has recently partnered with Wincor Nixdorf, a global top-three supplier of automated-teller machines (ATMs) and point-of-sale (POS) systems, for its Bio-ATM solution.

Catering to the banking environment, the solution incorporates fingerprint-recognition features into ATMs for added authentication purposes. Under the pact, ATI will supply fingerprint sensors, fingerprint modules, servers and related software to Wincor Nixdorf.

“Most important, solutions are now integrated and we have fingerprint ATMs ready to operate,” emphasized Hsieh.

As numerous mergers and acquisitions are taking place in the banking sector, various financial institutions are in search of unique products, services and solutions to stand out from the competition.

As such, ATI targets having at least one local bank deploy its Bio-ATM solution by the first quarter of next year; it will then replicate the business model in other countries.

According to figures from International Biometric Group, e-commerce, telephony, retail, ATM and POS applications are estimated to have a combined 6.1 percent share of biometrics-application revenue this year.

The number is comparatively low compared with criminal-identification applications--widely deployed by the public sector--which is expected to garner the highest revenues at 26.2 percent.

“Full-scale biometrics deployments are still limited to the financial sector in Asia,” Hsieh admitted.

But he is optimistic about market outlook as the public and financial sectors are the two most willing to invest in security solutions; ATI will continue its focus on these industries to further boost acceptance of biometrics solutions.

To start, the company hopes users accept its fingerprint ATMs voluntarily at the initial stage and go for wider adoption in the midterm. It will continue to seek partnerships with more banks and ATM vendors.

South Korea

Meanwhile, South Korean vendors Hunno Technologies Inc. and Hyosung Corp. announced a deal last year under which Hunno’s fingerprint-identification technology will be incorporated into ATMs manufactured by Hyosung.

Under the pact, Hunno supplies MS2600 fingerprint ID scanners--a biometrics-based identification system that prevents fraudulent-banking incidents by denying account access when attempted by unauthorized individuals with non-matching fingerprints.

Financial Sector Embracing Biometrics

2004-09-27T16:47:00.000+08:00

According to International Biometric Group, annual biometrics revenue in the financial sector will expand 839 percent by 2008. As biometrics technologies have started to gain momentum in the banking sector, vendors are making waves in the market with major implementations.

Early this year, the Bank of China deployed fingerprint-recognition devices for its employees in more than 1,000 branches to secure assets, including vaults and bank mainframes.

Deployment of Bioscrypt V-Pass fingerprint readers beefed up security for employees and assets.

Bioscrypt Inc. claimed that its technology has changed the way Chinese banks view biometrics products, and that this will set the stage for the rest of the country.

“Enhanced security and ease of use are main advantages in using fingerprint-recognition technology, especially in the banking industry,” said Jordan benShea, product-marketing manager at Bioscrypt.

The provider of identity-verification technology asserted its solutions are capable of enhancing security where nonbiometrics technologies fail.

Popular in Fingerprints

“Many of our customers are deploying fingerprint readers to take advantage of Three Form Authentication--what you have (the ID card), what you know (the added security by using a PIN) and who you are (fingerprints for the final security advantage, something that cannot be stolen or misplaced),” she said.

However, primary obstacles are ensuring consistent enrolment and verification. “Using any biometrics on a daily basis can prove very challenging, as things can change from day to day, and people might have scratches or cuts,” she pointed out.

In addition, capturing quality images for the first time can prove difficult given the diverse nature of a large population of individuals.

Bioscrypt’s algorithm, however, is designed to accommodate these changes, she said. As its readers use RF-based sensor technology called True Print, they are able to capture “live” fingerprints located below the dead layer of skin that succumbs to all kinds of abuse.

“This allows our readers to capture quality images even if there are blemishes, dirt or other unknowns during the process,” she claimed.

Eyeing huge potential markets as biometrics technologies rapidly gain acceptance in the market, Bioscrypt recently released the Biometric Identity Management (BIM) application. This allows users to enroll just one time within an enterprise and, from that single enrollment, access PCs, doors, time-and-attendance as well as a whole host of other potential applications.

“We believe that an enterprise solution that is flexible for both logical and physical access, will allow our application to meet specific customer needs that will not force them to try to fit into our solutions. Providing biometrics solutions that address their growing concerns is the best strategy for us to take advantage of the uptake in technology,” she added.

Convenient Hand Readers

“Hand-geometry and fingerprint technologies complement each other and together encompass close to 80 percent of all biometrics access-control solutions,” said Bill Spence, director of marketing at IR Recognition Systems, a biometrics supplier for access-control and time-and-attendance applications.

He added that the physical access-control and time-and-attendance segment has been the largest revenue-generating application for the total biometrics market and its value is expected to rise.

One of its customer references is the Caribbean-based FirstBank Puerto Rico. It has deployed over 100 units of HandPunch 4000 terminals in 100 locations, including bank branches, corporate headquarters and affiliated businesses in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Tortola.

Instead of filling out or punching timecards, employees simply place their hands on the HandPunch. It automatically takes three-dimensional readings of the size and shape of employee hands and verifies user identity in less than one second.

As such, the bank is able to eliminate expenses associated with employee badges, buddy punching and unauthorized overtime.

It also manages to decentralize attendance functions from payroll to individual company units, turning over responsibility and ownership of the system to supervisors and employees.

“Biometrics technology offers a huge increase in security over the card-only system for the banking environment,” Spence stressed.

To increase market acceptance, the company is educating users on how each major biometrics fits specific applications. For instance, small user populations are where most fingerprint readers are being used successfully.

“We’ve designed a low-cost, yet robust biometrics access-control product targeted to meet that need. In these applications, total number of transactions tends to be fairly low. Therefore, user and administrative issues generated by higher error rates in fingerprint technology versus hand geometry end up being a minor inconvenience rather than a major hassle,” he said.

Sign to Pass

Meanwhile, Interlink Electronics Inc., the developer of intuitive-interface solutions, said unlike signature pads found in retail environments, the company’s ePad solution captures much more than simply the shape of handwritten signatures.

The system also records stylus pressure, stroke order and elapsed time.

Invisible biometrics not only guarantees security of documents, but also is employed to authenticate identity and security level of signers themselves.

Nationwide Building Society, the U.K.’s fifth largest mortgage lender, has employed Interlink’s ePad-ink electronic-signature products throughout its payment-processing system in a move to automate its internal check-payment process, increasing security and minimizing fraud.

The implementation utilizes pads to authenticate signatures to authorize payments at various levels.

ePad-ink, an electronic-signature input device, captures handwritten signatures with its integrated LCD input pad, converting them into biometrically-secure e-signatures. It then binds these permanently into Microsoft Word documents, Outlook e-mail, Adobe Acrobat PDF files, Internet documents as well as proprietary forms and transactions.

Voicing Up

With three call centers nearing call-volume capacity, Lloyds TSB, one of the largest banks in England, decided to find a better way to manage customer-care operations.

Rather than opening another costly call center, it turned to Nuance and Nortel Networks to develop a voice-driven banking system: PhoneBank Express.

Powered by Nuance speech-recognition software, PhoneBank Express allows Lloyd’s customers to get account balances, review transactions, pay bills and retrieve ministatement information, all through simple voice commands. For example, they can say, “transfer 500 pounds from currents to savings please” or “give me the balance in my current account.”

Since its launch in 1997, PhoneBank Express has handled over 40 million calls and 65 million transactions. Customer satisfaction has also been impressive--over 90 percent of customers rated the service as “good or better.”

In addition to Nuance, major voice-recognition vendors include Configate, SpeakEZ Inc. and Veritel Corp.

Moving Toward Biometrics Smartcards

2004-08-20T15:28:00.000+08:00

The U.K. government recently unveiled plans to introduce biometrics national identity cards in 2007 on a voluntary basis. These high-tech ID cards, which bear data such as electronic fingerprints or iris scans, aim to curb fraud and identity theft as well as deterring terrorists.

As more and more public-sector offices embark on biometrics-smartcard projects, industry players wonder if the market is really all roses. Jason Tan reports.

This year, some 86 million biometrics smartcards will be sold worldwide. The figure is expected to grow to over 160 million by 2006, marking compound annual growth of 104 percent from 2002 to 2006, said Frost and Sullivan.

“The market is definitely growing healthy,” pointed out Jafizwaty Ishahak, an industry analyst with the research group.

The Sept. 11 attacks and despicable terrorist acts, like the Bali bombing, have had an impact on many industries. Security issues have suddenly been propelled into the spotlight as never before, she said.

Security has become a high priority, and national authorities and governments have begun searching for the best options available. “It will be a matter of time before all of them find it necessary to fit themselves out with advanced security technology,” she added.

Although various alternatives may be available, more sophisticated methods and intensified security dictate more advanced technology.

“Hence, these criteria may welcome a new era of biometrics smartcards. Integration of the two technologies provides a higher level of security, convenience and portability,” she stressed.

Challenges

Government and ID applications are the largest potential market in the biometrics-smartcard industry. This has been the case in diverse nations and regions such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, India and Australia.

Meanwhile, use in travel and transportation projects is also gaining momentum.

“Secure air travel has become a global necessity, as it cannot be restricted to the confines within one country. As a result, several international efforts using biometrics smartcards for secure passenger identification and processing have been put together to address the issue,” said Jafizwaty.

“However, people still have the perception that biometrics will encroach on personal freedom, and this leads to public discomfort,” she said, adding that the high cost of biometrics-smartcard infrastructure has also discouraged investment.

For instance, the cost of multi-application smartcards—depending on memory size, chip type and application number—is around US$4, while smartcards with biometrics applications start from US$4.50.

“While biometrics shows promise, realization has yet to reach the level that many have expected,” observed Cedric Collomb, marketing director at Asia, Axalto.

In the field of biometrics deployment, a significant challenge is lack of standardization.

“Obviously, the question of which biometrics (fingerprint, iris or face) authentication is based on is important, but more significant is which formats for storing biometrics templates and application programming interfaces (APIs) for doing biometric comparisons are used,” he commented.

North America Catching Up

According to Frost and Sullivan, the Asia Pacific had the highest percentage of unit shipments of biometrics smartcards in 2002 at 53.3 percent; North America trailed at 13.3 percent.

All this set to change in 2006. Unit shipments in Asia are forecast to drop to 39.2 percent, while those in North America rise to 21.6 percent.

“North America has immense potential in the adoption of the technologies,” Jafizwaty said, adding that enterprise security, in particular, is gaining in popularity.

Large multinationals, such as Microsoft and Boeing, have started to utilize smartcards-based corporate ID cards in a bid to secure access to office buildings.

This will boost confidence of other medium and large corporations, prompting them to follow suit.

However, figures from the International Biometric Group revealed that about only one-third of the U.S. biometrics industry's US$719 million in revenues last year came from the private sector.

A newly-released report from Burton Group supported this, indicating that despite the much-touted benefits of technologies, such as fingerprint, voice, iris and facial-recognition systems, the private sector has been slow to embrace them.

It predicted that over the next two to three years, biometrics will remain a niche solution in enterprises rather than a technology that is deployed to the masses.

Jason Chaikin, director of business development at Identix Asia Pacific, said though the technologies are currently experiencing “exponential” growth, the industry is facing difficulties in scaling them to the national level.

As technologies become more mature, there is a need to ensure that supporting systems, such as passport-issuance systems, are fully ready for biometrics implementation, he commented.

In terms of adoption, the health-care sector in the U.S. is fast catching up as regulations to mandate the industry to ensure privacy of patient medical records are put in place, he said.

Echoing this was Paul Beverly, Axalto’s president for North, Central and South America, “A lot of attention is being paid to passports and travel documents, obviously driven largely by the U.S. program mandating use of biometrics e-passports for visa-waiver countries.”

“We are also seeing interest from government agencies, particularly military, for use of biometrics as an alternative or supplement to conventional smartcard PINs and passwords.”

A Different View

However, Norman Chen, sales manager of Gemplus Taiwan, is reserved about the hype.

He pointed out that the industry still faces privacy-intrusion issues—especially obvious in the controversy over biometrics national ID cards.

As individual fingerprints are stored digitally in government databases, there is no guarantee that information will be 100 percent safe from hackers. As such, the decision to embark on national-ID-card schemes, is sparking a tussle between government agencies and civilians.

In view of low demand, Gemplus has reduced production of biometrics smartcards since the first half of last year, he revealed.

“It is not economical to smartcard vendors like us as the major cost doesn’t come from the smartcards themselves, but from fingerprint applications,” he added.

Hence, it does not really benefit smartcard vendors as they are merely pushing products for biometrics partners. However, Gemplus has not ruled out mass production if demand picks up, he said.

Taiwan's CCTV market grows 17% in 2003

2004-08-19T11:41:00.000+08:00

The CCTV market in Taiwan recorded 17 percent of growth last year in terms of total revenues, the highest rate among all security products.

According to a recent market research conducted by New Era International Inc. and National Chengchi University, the total security revenues marked US$0.7 billion last year, and are expected to reach $0.9 billion this year.

As such, the island should utilize its edge as one of the world’s top three CCTV suppliers, and make bigger impact on the international security arena. In this field, digital video recorder and IP camera will especially present strong potential to the vendors, said Parson Lee, general manager of New Era International.

As a whole, he said that the industry will move towards integration and solution suites instead of standalone products as seen in the current marketplace.

The trend of security merging with home automation solutions will bring forwards business opportunities to big names. IBM, Microsoft and Intel have already jumped into the bandwagon and this will definitely impact the industry, he observed.

The company held a seminar to announce the results of the market study yesterday, which attracted some 130 participants from the security and financial industries.

Tussle among dual-interface smartcards

2004-08-09T08:58:00.000+08:00

By Jason Tan

Smartcard interfaces can generally be categorized into contact, contactless, and dual interface, which combines both.

Type A, B and C are three major types of dual-interface smartcards, said Johnson Wang, ASK’s general manager of North Asia.

The first two types comply with the ISO 14443 standard, but transmission speed of Type A is four times higher than Type B.

According to Wang, Type A is the most widely adopted card as its chip was first developed by Philips Semiconductors early in 1994. Asian countries perceive them as being more secure with better performance.

Samsung, OTI and Amtel are the main suppliers of Type B chips, and cards with these chips are more common in European and Asian countries, such as Germany, Spain, Taiwan and Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Sony came up Type C cards, but they have not yet been recognized by standards bodies. This may cause them to fade away from the market, Wang commented.

However, Type C cards have been popular in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China. Their popularity may be attributed partly to Sony’s promotion of the cards to vendors at competitive prices.

As dual-interface smartcards are mainly used in transportation, vendors need to come out with more killer applications before they see wider adoption. Potential areas include banking, e-commerce, purchases and administration.

One way of doing this is to incorporate micropayment applications, turning dual-interface cards not only into public-transport cards, but also cash cards that allow consumers to conduct transactions at participating outlets, Wang suggested.