Opportunity at your Fingertips
I have been researching an investment strategy for a couple of months relating to everybody's newest best friend; their Blackberry. As RIM, the handset maker continues to launch new products to compete with their competitors, there has been a lot of hype recently about the launch of the new Blackberry Bold handset/ launch of the Blackberry Partners Fund as well as an upgraded outlook for RIM Stock- all good news coming from the Canadian technology golden child. 
While each of these developments is positive and very encouraging that RIM will continue to make forward steps with their product offerings, I am still waiting to hear about what could be a very important piece of technology to be integrated with Blackberry technology. Though I do not own a digital leash, and have not yet really found a compelling reason to get one, I am fascinated by the technology and the way people use them. For personal use and business communication they are little marvels of integration. But they also have the potential to be extremely dangerous if they were to fall in the wrong hands.
In a world where corporate information, confidential emails and users identities are being stored and transmitted on wireless handheld devices, the need for IT and physical security has never been greater. At this point handheld security for Blackberry's has consisted mainly of sturdy belt holsters on a significant portion of PDA wearers, as well as time set 4 digit locking mechanisms on the handset. The lock feature provides a sufficient layer of security if employed by the user. However, there's the rub. In the on demand world we live in, few of us have the time or patience to plug in a code everytime we want to send a text or make a call. In my experience, very few of my friends or colleagues properly protect their Blackberry's. Probably too, very few of them have likely considered the repercussions if their shiny black friends were to fall in the hands of the wrong person. The amount of data, corporate or otherwise held on there is staggering!
So what is the solution? It occurred to me that what once was an expensive, ill refined and seemingly far off technology is now at the cusp of being integrated to daily security features. In our post-2001 environment we have seen a shift towards increased security with much written about security technologies such as retinal scanners, DNA passports, thermal imaging etc. The technology that is increasingly being employed in consumer products such as laptops and other pda's is that of biometric Thumbscaning. Lenovo and Sony, as well as IBM have started installing these units in their laptops and the market for them is growing in many other applications.
The question is, when will we see biometric thumbscan technology integrated into Blackberry handhelds? If RIM wants to remain the dominant wireless business communication device, they will have to address this security issue sooner rather than later. Think of how cool it would be to have biometric thumbscanning capability built into the roller ball of that sweet new B'berry Bold! Or even having biometric scanning integrated into a corner of the Apple iphone. By applying your unique user digit (finger) on the interface, the unit would unlock if the biometrics are a match. Non-matching scans would be prompted for the 4 digit (number) code. These types of technologies are on there way.
I would be very interested to find out which company is leading the charge working with RIM to refine the technology to put biometric security features in handhelds. One can only speculate what the contract would do to a small technology firm that gets the contract to manufacture the units to be put into handsets of the future. Authentec is one of the companies claiming to be a leader in this field but I have heard nothing specific about their involvement with RIM. They are a publicly traded company AUTH-Q (US$.
Perhaps someone out there in the vast blogosphere has specific insight as to what the prospects are for this technology and for those of us who are interested in seeing it come to fruition??? More about this topic in the future.
While each of these developments is positive and very encouraging that RIM will continue to make forward steps with their product offerings, I am still waiting to hear about what could be a very important piece of technology to be integrated with Blackberry technology. Though I do not own a digital leash, and have not yet really found a compelling reason to get one, I am fascinated by the technology and the way people use them. For personal use and business communication they are little marvels of integration. But they also have the potential to be extremely dangerous if they were to fall in the wrong hands.
In a world where corporate information, confidential emails and users identities are being stored and transmitted on wireless handheld devices, the need for IT and physical security has never been greater. At this point handheld security for Blackberry's has consisted mainly of sturdy belt holsters on a significant portion of PDA wearers, as well as time set 4 digit locking mechanisms on the handset. The lock feature provides a sufficient layer of security if employed by the user. However, there's the rub. In the on demand world we live in, few of us have the time or patience to plug in a code everytime we want to send a text or make a call. In my experience, very few of my friends or colleagues properly protect their Blackberry's. Probably too, very few of them have likely considered the repercussions if their shiny black friends were to fall in the hands of the wrong person. The amount of data, corporate or otherwise held on there is staggering!
So what is the solution? It occurred to me that what once was an expensive, ill refined and seemingly far off technology is now at the cusp of being integrated to daily security features. In our post-2001 environment we have seen a shift towards increased security with much written about security technologies such as retinal scanners, DNA passports, thermal imaging etc. The technology that is increasingly being employed in consumer products such as laptops and other pda's is that of biometric Thumbscaning. Lenovo and Sony, as well as IBM have started installing these units in their laptops and the market for them is growing in many other applications.
The question is, when will we see biometric thumbscan technology integrated into Blackberry handhelds? If RIM wants to remain the dominant wireless business communication device, they will have to address this security issue sooner rather than later. Think of how cool it would be to have biometric thumbscanning capability built into the roller ball of that sweet new B'berry Bold! Or even having biometric scanning integrated into a corner of the Apple iphone. By applying your unique user digit (finger) on the interface, the unit would unlock if the biometrics are a match. Non-matching scans would be prompted for the 4 digit (number) code. These types of technologies are on there way.
I would be very interested to find out which company is leading the charge working with RIM to refine the technology to put biometric security features in handhelds. One can only speculate what the contract would do to a small technology firm that gets the contract to manufacture the units to be put into handsets of the future. Authentec is one of the companies claiming to be a leader in this field but I have heard nothing specific about their involvement with RIM. They are a publicly traded company AUTH-Q (US$.
Perhaps someone out there in the vast blogosphere has specific insight as to what the prospects are for this technology and for those of us who are interested in seeing it come to fruition??? More about this topic in the future.
Labels: biometric thumbscan, Blackberry, RIM, venture capital, wireless security
posted by David Offierski at
2:37 PM
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