April 25, 2001

Finger pointing
Next-generation devices may require the gesture mom said was rude

Your mom probably told you that it's impolite to point, but you may have to ignore her advice when it comes to next-generation cell phones and PDAs. According to some recent announcements, the gesture mom didn't approve of may become a preferred interface method for accessing location-based services and ensuring security.

Location-based services that use GPS data have made lots of news in the past year, but ambiguity remains a problem. A user might ask for info on nearby restaurants, but if she's standing in a major metropolitan center, the request could return a listing of hundreds of eateries. GeoVector claims it can refine the location service by allowing the user to literally point a cell phone or PDA—at either a specific establishment or in the direction of a small number of restaurants—to receive more accurate info.

The system relies on a heading sensor combined with location data. And now Texas Instruments offers GeoVector support in its Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP). OMAP provides a standard software platform for products like 2.5G and 3G phones that allows convergence teams to build compelling applications for side-by-side DSP and RISC engines. As an example of capabilities, the companies claim that a user could point a device equipped with "Pointing Access Method" technology at a theater in order to view trailers of the current movies. GeoVector also offers a service to guide the user to the destination of interest.

Regardless of just what users point out however, how can service operators be sure of the identity of the person buying those movie tickets? In other words, how do they authenticate the user? The most promising answer to the question remains biometric techniques, including both fingerprint recognition and more exotic concepts such as iris and face recognition.

STMicroelectronics and IDEX have partnered to solve the problem by developing SmartFinger, a module for devices like cell phones and PDAs. The module would leverage fingerprint recognition to enable secured transactions, thereby eliminating the need for easily compromised passwords and PIN numbers. Meanwhile, the module would double as a finger-driven pointing device, eliminating the need for the roller balls and jog dials found on many emerging portable appliances.

—Maury Wright, Editor-in-Chief