iWallet’s new partnership with NEXT Biometrics is already bearing fruit, with a new device resulting from the companies’ collaboration. Called the iWallet Password, it’s a peripheral USB fingerprint reader based on NEXT Biometrics’ NB-3010-U sensor.
It’s a bit of a new direction for iWallet, whose products revolve around wallets and passport holders featuring advanced digital security measures such as Bluetooth tethering and RFID-blocking technology. While a major component of iWallet’s devices is their use of embedded fingerprint-based biometric locks, and that ties in well with NEXT Biometrics’ own technological interests, the USB peripheral is a bit of a departure from the company’s usual “techcessories”, as it calls them. But the recent partnership has presented the opportunity for both companies to leverage each others’ technology and brands, and this new device appears to be a way of immediately cashing in on that opportunity.
In a statement, iWallet CEO Jack Chadsey explained that fingerprint-based authentication “is at an inflection point,” and pointed to Apple’s pioneering efforts in deploying the technology via its mobile devices and the use of biometric authentication in the new Windows 10 operating system as evidence of a trend “towards faster and more localized password-free authentication methods.” He’s certainly right there, and if iWallet is looking to move in the direction of more general-purpose or versatile biometric authentication products, there is a wealth of opportunities on the horizon.
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