Whether we like it or not, fingerprint scanning technology for authorization is the wave of the future – that and retina scanning. People are on the move and stores want you in and out, but also worry about stolen VISA cards, etc…what better way to make a fast and secure sale than using someone’s fingerprint or eye scan? Quick, easy and safe…what more could you ask for? Apple mainstreamed the fingerprint scanner/reader on the iPhone 5s and have perfected it better than anybody so far. HTC put one on the back of their HTC One Max, but left it off their newer device, the HTC One M8. Samsung finally put one on their Galaxy S5 and now on their new Galaxy Note 4 – although people have complained that it can be a little ‘finicky.’
It looks like Acer is the next big company to jump into the fingerprint world as they announced today that they would be teaming up with Egis Technology Inc., and according to Maverick Shih, President of Acer’s Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC) and tablet business group, that will propel Acer into the payment business. He expects fingerprint recognition technology to be available on Acer’s smartphones and/or its wearable devices in the near future. Egis is a leading Taiwanese provider of fingerprint biometrics and data encryption and believes that fingerprint solutions will allow users to unlock their devices, open programs or applications or even documents, simply by swiping your finger. If this works – and there is no reason it should not – it will really help eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords on each account…I actually have an application on my smartphone where I store all of my passwords.
Acer has been working on a payment solution for a while now – in January of 2013, it purchased seven million shares on an online payment company called PChomePay. Using a cloud-based payment system may end up with them directly competing with Apple Pay – although, since Apple choose a different, proprietary route, everybody’s online payment systems will end up competing against them. Acer’s BYOC is a system that allows users to manage digital files across all Acer PCs and mobile devices. It is not clear if Acer will use the swipe-based scanners or the newer state-of-the-art touch sensors – Egis can provide either solution. Please hook up with us on our Google+ Page and let us know if you are looking forward to using your fingerprint or would you prefer passwords…as always, we would love to hear from you.