Fujitsu have recently announced a new form of biometric device which uses a near-infrared camera that captures each person’s unique palm vein pattern, or template. First applications include patient identification in US healthcare and customer identification in Japanese Banks.

The device, resembling a small black cube uses a vascular pattern recognition system to accurately identify people while they hold their palm just above the cube. The scan, requiring less than a second, captures the unique branching pattern of blood veins and instantly converts key data points into a numerical code that can be compared with other palm scans to identify matches. The miniaturized device can plug into a laptop computer via a USB port, while an alternative version released last year incorporates the palm scanner into a computer mouse to facilitate secure logins.

Beyond security, the palm-reader and associated software boast another advantage: not having to remember multiple passwords for starting Windows sessions and password-protected applications. The new technology is said to have a low “false acceptance ratio” that yields less than one incorrect match per every million tries which is far better than fingerprint recognition techology. Although iris scanning is still seen as the most reliable biometric identification method, it is less convenient for the user and requires careful set up. This biometric technology could be one to watch and might well find a place as part of many future “sweet spot” systems.

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Innovation and change are often very closely linked. In my view, innovative thinking requires a certain mindset shift and changing behaviour to create a more innovative culture often requires some kind of change initiative, so when I received a report from Mike Bird of Bloomstorm, it made interesting reading. The main conclusions were:

• Half of those surveyed thought that most change initiatives fail
• Almost two-thirds of respondents thought that no more than half of all change initiatives get the buy-in they need
• More than half of those surveyed stated that forced or imposed projects fail
• Senior and front-line management were seen to be almost twice as important as any other business function, including training or IT, in terms of their value to successful change implementation

In short, the respondents believed that most business change initiatives have a slim chance of success. Mike goes on to say that if we want our change initiatives to succeed in the future we need to adopt alternative strategies to those we use currently.

 

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Well, not exactly right now but, seen flying by just outside my window recently were the following:

F22A Raptor

The only flying Avro Vulcan in the world

A very large Airbus A380

 

Which must mean that it’s almost Farnborough Airshow time again.

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