Bleeding edge: Iris-enabled watch and color wheel for online ID
09 July, 2014
category: Biometrics, Digital ID
Passwords aren’t the answer to online access and entrepreneurs are proposing new ways to enable easy and secure online access.
Two solutions being proposed include a watch that uses iris biometrics and a color wheel that would plug into a USB drive.
The FiDELYS launched with a crowd funding campaign on indiegogo.com. The company says the smart watch is a “perfect form factor” for iris biometrics because people are so used to glancing at their watches. The watch is using iris technology from IriTech.
The FiDELYS is being touted as an authentication mechanism for other devices. The watch will enable encryption of files and data, control launch of applications — bank apps, picture galleries, emails etc., and unlock your device itself by verifying the users iris pattern. The watch will have a clicking bezel, not a touchscreen, to interact with the device.
The watches are expected to cost $250 when released but can be pre-ordered now for $200.
Using wearables and mobile devices for authentication is not a new concept and one that is seeing greater discussion. There are a handful of smart watches available in the market that link with smart phones to show texts, email, caller ID but none that offer the extra authentication factor for online access.
Color wheel for online ID
Renee Verhoeven, a design student at the Royal College of Arts in London is proposing something else with her “ID Protocol,” according to a report on Wired.com.
Verhoeven created a series of password tools that scrap letters and numbers in favor of personal, mnemonic codes. There are three components with mnemonic devices: movement; synesthesia, which studies differences in perception and memory and interpreting a code as a texture or a sound; and creating a narrative out of existing words.
ID Protocol uses all of these components. While just a concept for now, here’s how it would work: A user selects one of the ID Protocol tokens, which plugs into a USB drive. On the user’s end, there’s a physical interface that can be configured in many different ways that rely on sensory cues, so some are based on color recognition, others on storytelling, and others on pattern-making and muscle memory.
Rather than choose a random chain of letters users could use a color wheel to create a three-hue pattern, like a visual combination lock. Or a user could arrange a cast of figurines to tell a story. The software used to unlock a computer would go unchanged; the only difference is for the end user.