NEXT Biometrics CEO on mainstream adoption of fingerprint technology

Tore Etholm-Idsøe, CEO of NEXT Biometrics and fingerprint sensor expert, recently appeared on National Public Radio’s (NPR) syndicated talk show “Here & Now” to discuss the growing use of fingerprint technology in daily life, including in smart cards, PCs, tablets, access control for homes and businesses, smart phones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

“Here & Now” is produced by NPR’s Boston affiliate WBUR and hosted by Jeremy Hobson. The show is broadcast weekdays by more than 500 NPR stations in every state, city and region of America.

The NEXT Biometrics CEO told Hobsen, “We target markets for our advanced fingerprint sensors in the mass market one-to-one context, for which you need to be able to process fingerprint identification and authentication in typically less than one second.”

Etholm-Idsøe said, “Think of it, every day we authenticate ourselves tens of times or more, even up to hundreds of times in different contexts, as we increasingly use fingerprint technology to enter smart phones or tablets or even our homes and more.” He added, “Rather than having to type in a password, fingerprint technology will be used in a lot of different contexts such as access control for homes and businesses, for small devices that are entering the market now at an increased pace, as well as in keyfobs and many more applications.

“The fingerprint sensor market was slow until 2013 when Apple put a fingerprint sensor on its iPhone and that changed the dynamic of the market considerably. Now you have fingerprint sensors in almost all smartphones.”

Etholm-Idsøe also told NPR that the company has focused its resources on quality dependent market segments that require high levels of security and convenience coupled with the ability to serve close to 100% of a given population. These markets include smart cards, NEXT-enabled markets, traditional markets, high-end smartphones and quality notebooks – markets that Etholm-Idsøe says NEXT technology is well suited for.

“Throughout 2015, NEXT and its partners realized several key smart card related development milestones regarding using NEXT fingerprint sensors for this important market,” said Etholm-Idsoe in the company’s 2015 financial results. “During this period and continuing into 2016 NEXT has focused large parts of the R&D resources to smart card activities, and NEXT sees significant opportunities within several of the major volume smart card market segments.”

NEXT also detailed in its 2016 outlook that the company will ramp up its smart card related plans and activities, increasing business based on its newly launched 1411-Series fingerprint sensors, and serving the notebook segment.

NEXT Biometrics is based on Oslo, Norway and is publicly traded on the Oslo Bors.

Click here to listen to the NPR interview.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint authentication  |  fingerprint sensors  |  fingerprint technology  |  Next Biometrics  |  smartphones  |  Tore Etholm-Idsøe