July 24, 2007 -- Hitachi, Ltd. has introduced its "compact and contactless" Finger Vein biometric authentication device and software development kit (SDK). Full-scale availability and sales of the product began this month in Europe, North America, Asia, Oceania and elsewhere, says the company.
According to a press release, Hitachi developed the product based on the original model designed for the Japanese market and sold in Japan since October 2006. With the device, PC users can guard against illegitimate access or leakage of information on their computers by using the vein patterns in their finger as the key to manage their computer login process.
The finger vein unit has achieved its small size, high accuracy rate and low cost by employing a single-chip LSI design, says Hitachi. In operation, the process of data collection is based on a contact-less principle. Light penetrates through the finger using a light-transmission technique to allow the detection of the structure of the vein pattern. The vein pattern is image-processed using a special algorithm resulting in digital data that can be stored in a relevant data repository.
The SDK allows for development of custom applications or integration into existing application environments, including car entry, personal authentication, PC login, and validation for ATM machines.