Commercial smartphone software to use hand vein patterns for authentication

Tokyo, Japan--Smartphone software is growing more sophisticated in exploiting phone cameras' capabilities. The latest example of this is vein scanning for authentication: Universal Robot Co. and Softbank Mobile Corp. announced that they aim this year to commercialize software that enables personal authentication by taking a photo of hand veins with a smartphone camera. Because the software extracts the info from a standard photo taken in visible light, no extra hardware is needed (previously, authentication by vein has relied on images taken in near-IR light).

The software also extracts a palm pattern from the hand image, which is combined with the vein-based authentication to increase accuracy.

While hand and finger vein scanning as a form of verification has been around for years, the equipment has tended to be complex. The new software should help in increasing the security of smartphone-based payment—a scheme that could at least partly replace standard cash and credit-card payments if security could be ensured.

Sources: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20120829/236516/ and http://www.urobot.co.jp/