Omron announces face recognition for cellphones

With Japan cellphone leader NTT DoCoMo constantly finding new things to do with the Felica smart wallet chips in its phones, and 2nd and 3rd-placed KDDI and Vodafone poised to follow suit later this year, it's not surprising that security for the e-money/commuter pass data in handsets is a hot issue. Current approaches focus on conventional password protection, with Fujitsu throwing in fingerprint scanners on some of its phones as an alternative. Now Omron is making its own move on the arena with a face-recognition system that will match a phonecam snap of your face with 80 points on a stored photo within one second. No news about when this will hit the shelves, as it seems they're still trying to find a taker for the technology. The only thing that worries us is whether it's possible to scam the system Mission-Impossible style by holding up a photo in front of the lens.

[Via Japan Corp News]