The eye is the key
Operating on the adage that the eyes are the windows to the soul, Fujitsu's iris scanning technology will allow your eye to unlock your smartphone's window. Using an infrared scanner, Fujitsu claims that its biometric authentication system only requires that a smartphone user look at the phone's display to unlock it.
There are benefits to relying on the eye, rather than a finger, to secure your sensitive data. Fujitsu says that it is more difficult to forge compared to fingerprint readers.
"The pattern of one's iris does not change much at all after the age of two," Fujitsu said in a statement of iris scanning. "It is difficult to injure its surface, and is difficult to forge." The company says that the error rate is one in 100,000.
Additionally, there are also benefits to users, particularly those in the enterprise segment. If you're working in manufacturing, health care, or in the field where gloves are required, it may be impossible to use a fingerprint to unlock a phone or tablet based on today's available technology, but with iris scanning all that is required is your gaze.
With iris scanning, Fujitsu says you can unlock your phone, and you can use the technology to enter login information on apps and websites.
Because Fujitsu relies on an infrared light and IR camera to scan the eye, the security technology can work in the dark as well.
Fujitsu says the goal is to bring iris scanners to commercial devices in fiscal 2015.
In addition to passwords, competing vendor EyeLock demonstrated at CES 2015 that iris scans could replace locks, allowing users to gain access to a building or start their car ignition with a verified eye scan.
The power of the face
Intel's True Key technology uses the human face as the key. True Key is similar to how the human brain makes subconscious calculations to instantly detect if a face is familiar.
Intel says True Key uses facial math to identify characteristics of the face that make each person unique. Your digital identity is created with multiple features, such as your facial features and your fingerprint on supported devices like the iPhone.
"True Key by Intel Security unlocks sites, apps and devices by using personal, attributes such as facial features, a fingerprint or devices people own," Intel said in a statement. "The biometric technology used in True Key not only removes the hassle of remembering passwords, it also allows people to customize their level of security by using multiple factors to log in - the more factors added, the stronger a True Key profile becomes."
True Key is cross-platform compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, and the software can track password changes as well as generate strong passwords on the go.
The idea is very similar to password manager LastPass, but rather than having to type in your LastPass password to access your stored passwords, True Key can instantly unlock itself based on facial recognition.
Based on a freemium model where users can store 15 passwords at no cost, True Key is already in limited release at this time. A premium subscription is available for $19.99 (£15, AU$30) annually or $1.99 (£1.50, AU$3.00) monthly where users can store unlimited passwords.
