Sony unveils vein authentication tech

Mofiria - you're so vein. Bet you think this news story is about you...
Mofiria - you're so vein. Bet you think this news story is about you...

Forget face recognition, retinal scans of fingerprint technology – vein authentication is where it's at, according to Sony.

The company has unveiled Mofiria, which the company is calling: "Compact Sized, High Speed, High Accuracy Finger Vein Authentication Technology". Not sure about the caps, but it makes the technology seem very important in the press release.

The new tech was unveiled in Tokyo this month, so expect it to come to the UK never (where's our Bullet Train?).

Vein authentication

Sony has created the authentication system as a way to protect networked products from prying eyes.

The technology works in the following way: "Vein Authentication uses a unique method where a CMOS sensor diagonally captures scattered light inside the finger veins, making a plane layout possible.

"As a result, a small and more flexible design can be realized in building this technology into mobile devices."

Sony is claiming that the identification system is fool-proof as it uses the veins inside the finger. Unlike finger prints, which can obviously be cloned. Or did we just see that in an episode of Mission: Impossible once?

Sony hopes to implement the Mofiria technology into mobile devices this year, so maybe our previous statement of seeing it'never' was a little harsh.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.