Musings – Abhay S. Kushwaha

This story on eWeek talks about banks in Japan starting the use of Fujitsu’s biometric vein-pattern recognition technology for authentication.

(It) works by shining a near-infrared light on a palm placed about four centimeters above a scanner. The vein patterns illuminated under the skin appear as dark patterns, and it is this information that becomes the basis for security applications.

Sometimes I wonder about the symbiotic nature of real science and science fiction — which drives the other, how and to what degree. The classic example to illustrate my point is Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. A fiction based on fact yet the science was extended by Chrichton so beautifully that the boundaries of what is possible, and will be possible and what is not possible and probably never be are pretty much dulled out. In about a decade or so after its publication many cool gadgets have become widespread in use. It’s fun and a welcome break to muse about such, away from the hectic life of managing clients and their projects.