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In its search for effective measures against "look-a-like" fraud where passports and other documents are illegally shared, the Dutch government is turning to biometrics. Trials involving scanning of irises of eyes and faces will start in June. As technology made passports and other identification documents harder to forge, authorities have seen fraud by sharing of original documents increase, Interior ministry spokesman Frank van Beers said Wednesday.
"Passport photos aren't good enough to determine a person's identity, especially where it concerns people of different ethnic backgrounds," he said. In Rotterdam, 250 people from ethnic minorities will have their irises scanned. The data from that procedure, unique for every person, will be stored on a chip card. The person's identity can then be confirmed by inserting the card into a terminal followed by a scan of the iris |
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/04/19/biometric.ID.idg/index.html
Cybersister's Comment
Biometrics is a growing technology, that while it may not have exactly found its niche yet, is gradually finding its place in the marketplace. I think the industry and society as a whole hasn't quite figured out the proper use and placement of biometrics. However, biometrics products are becoming more flexible, capable of serving different purposes, or being used in tandem with over security products, accomplishing more than just authentication. Facial scans, eye scans, fingerprint scans, voice recognition are examples of biometric systems.
By 2004, IDC predicts the biometrics market will expand to $1.8 billion from $166 million in 1999. So, stay tuned, eventually you will be the security and you won't need to worry about forgetting your password!
Microsoft, Nortel and Sun Microsystems each weighed in after the close of regular trading with performance numbers for the first three months of the year that ranged from better-than-expected to disappointing.
On the better-than-expected side was Microsoft, which reported a net profit of $2.45 billion, which came ahead of consensus estimates from Wall Street analysts.
On the disappointing side was Nortel, which had warned Wall Street earlier that this would be a fairly miserable quarter. The company did about what it said it would do, and posted a huge loss.
Sun, meanwhile, topped expectations for quarterly profits, but reported slower-than-predicted sales.
We've all heard about the layoffs at nearly every Internet firm, and that's not counting the bankruptcies. But now's no time to change careers: Government figures show that U.S. companies are hiring more tech workers than ever before. Preliminary figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show that between February and March of this year, companies in the computer and data processing sector added -- not dropped -- a combined total of 12,000 jobs. In fact, the March 2001 data show a jump of 100,000 jobs from a year ago.
Source: Wired News: Business
CyberSister's Comment
Isn't that just life, eh? I agree with our "quote of the day" : despite the economy just keep your nose down and fanny up! A little creativity and imagination helps too...
Online Advertising is
Hurting
With advertising click-through rates running a pitiful 0.5 percent or less, Web marketers have turned to more-intrusive forms of advertising. Their strategy is simple: Bigger displays will lead to higher response levels. But consumers are annoyed by the new formats, not least because they tend to slow download speeds.
That's where ad-blocking software comes in. Marketed under such brand names as AdKiller, AdSubtract and Junkbuster Proxy, the software has been quietly spreading among Web users for the past three years. More than 4 million people have downloaded WebWasher, a Siemens spinoff, and InterMute's AdSubtract expects to have 2 million users by the end of the year.
Ad killers may be on the verge of critical mass.
Source: http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,23640,00.html
CyberSister's Comment
I'm not sure what to make of this. My cynical mind says that there is such a desire to buy/occupy our web space with advertising that this may be a game of who can out-smart who in figuring out new and different ways to dominate our "eyeballs" in cyberspace. But, certainly for the forseeable future if I was in web advertising, I'd be worried. Those pop-up ads are very annoying and are starting to feel like spam.
Jay Abraham’s site has some great articles about how to increase business income, wealth and success, and how to uncover hidden assets, overlooked opportunities and undervalued possibilities. There's a fair bit of self-promotion here, but if you get past that and skip right to his "reports" section, you'll find some usefull information. I found the 20 key quotations helpful for presentations, etc..
Venture WireLooking for private company investor news? Check this out. Covers new money, new deals, good news, bad news, background information. Sometimes it's hard to find good information about private deals and companies, so this might be a good place to check out.
BlueEyes software makes sense of what the cameras see to answer key questions for retailers, including, How many shoppers ignored a promotion? How many stopped? How long did they stay? Did their faces register boredom or delight? How many reached for the item and put it in their shopping carts? BlueEyes works by tracking pupil, eyebrow and mouth movement. When monitoring pupils, the system uses a camera and two infrared light sources placed inside the product display. One light source is aligned with the camera's focus; the other is slightly off axis. When the eye looks into the camera-aligned light, the pupil appears bright to the sensor, and the software registers the customer's attention.
Source: http://www.techreview.com/magazine/may01/innovation6.asp
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