Before long, we may use fingerprints, iris scans, and voice recognition to log onto computers, buy groceries -- even when picking up kids from school. This could be you: At a convenience store, a scanner reads your fingerprints and deducts the price of a coffee and doughnut from your checking account. Once at the office, your employer uses software to monitor the rhythm of your typing or a Webcam to measure the proportions of your face before letting you onto the network. Your call to customer service won't go through until you're identified by the cadence of your voice.
Palm Reader
What: Fujitsu PalmSecure Measures: Vascular patterns and blood flow in the hand
Status: Widely available at ATMs and other locations in Japan. U.S. launch expected this year The PalmSecure bombards the user's hand with "near infrared" light to detect the pattern of blood vessels. Fujitsu is close-lipped about a U.S. debut expected later this year but says PalmSecure could be useful in health care and for granting access to buildings.
What: Pay By Touch Measures: Fingerprints Status: available in certain grocery stores. Soon through an as-yet-undisclosed e-tailer Sample customers: Supervalu, Albertson's, Piggly Wiggly. Used by several retailers, Pay By Touch may be the most prominent biometric device in the U.S. Shoppers enrolled in the program can speed through checkout lines, paying for items with a linked bank account or credit card simply by applying a fingerprint to a sensor. Pay By Touch says more than 2 million people have signed up. Now the company plans to expand into online retail, using sensors available on some laptops.
The headlines stated "Europe Is United Again", May 2004
The headlines stated "Europe Is United Again", May 2004
10 nations in eastern Europe and Mediterranean join bloc. Europe stood proudly reunited yesterday almost six decades after it was split in two by the Cold War, as 10 nations in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean took their places in the European Union. The once-communist states of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia officially joined the EU family. Mediterranean islands Cyprus and Malta joined them as well, rounding out what is indisputably the world’s biggest single economic bloc, and a fledgling political force, with a total population of 455 million, the EU now surpasses the United States as the world's biggest economy.
