The Sony Mofiria

For most of us, a fingerprint is the height of personal identification, but for some applications, something a bit more secure is necessary. For that, Sony is introducing the Mofiria, which can use near-infrared to look at the veins in your finger.

Fingerprints, as we’ve all seen in movies, can be altered or removed, and a wiley criminal can even mimic someone else’s prints under certain circumstances. But the veins in your finger are as unique as your fingerprint, and there is currently no known way of altering them without extensive and expensive surgery. And even that surgery could only alter yours, it can not currently be used to simulate someone else’s.

This is exactly what the mofiria is designed to indentify. It uses near
infrared LEDs on the side of the user’s finger, and then CMOS sensors
can capture the scattered light inside the finger veins.

Sony hopes to have these devices available sometime during the fiscal 2009 year, and reports that these devices, like their fingerprint scanning countrparts, are flat, which will allow for easy integration into mobile devices.