• by Dacia Ray , March 30, 2005

The next time you visit the Statue of Liberty, use the rental lockers. For heightened security purposes, the tourist attraction opted for biometric lockers  a system that implements fingerprint access technology.

Thales Fund Management, a New York-based investment firm, scans employee and visitor's eyeballs before an automated voice tells the person whether or not they have been identified and will allow them to pass. Think this sounds like science fiction? Think again.

The future of biometrics, from fingerprints to retina scans, is here. And, it's most likely in use at a grocery store near you, as punch clocks, too, are being replaced with fingerprint-verified systems. If you've got a mobile camera phone, you could be toting a personal biometric system by this time next year.

Image-recognition software is being developed as a biometric security feature by a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company called Neven Vision to create a Google-like service. No, it's not a series of algorithms that search the Web; it's a search platform for phonecam users.

Neven's facial recognition software can be modified to identify anything users experience in the real world. At a loss as to what that genus of orchid you've found at the botanical gardens is? Snap a photo and have it identified in the time it takes to Google your name; the system's facial analysis algorithms could identify anything from a caterpillar to a teapot to the Eiffel Tower.

Farther down the road, the device could serve as a mobile travel guide and a ripe medium for advertisement. Let's say you're taking a walk around the Seattle Center and stumble upon the Experience Music Project. Snap a photo with your camera phone, implement the software, and it might tell you that the building was designed by Frank O. Gehry, supply you with a $5 coupon courtesy of Pepsi, and let you purchase tickets via Ticketmaster. It could even tell you all this in Chinese.

Neven hopes to use the technology to authenticate purchases made via cell phones too. It's developing a security application that will employ facial features, skin texture, and iris pattern to identify the purchaser. So, the next time you pass a notice for that new Tom Cruise movie you've been dying to see, simply scan in the movie poster advertisement, press purchase, and authenticate biometrically. Dacia Ray