NASDAQ On-Board With PWC/PWH Concepts

Veritec introduces PhoneCodes(C) that allow consumers to buy and receive tickets, as well as gift(s), or customer-loyalty rewards via an electronic media concept/process using Veritec's 2-D barcode technology Image Credit: Veritec

NASDAQ On-Board With PWC/PWH Concepts

The world of cellphone based symbology has now made inroads on to the pages of one of the leading investment market websites with a news posting about Veritec, Inc. and the announcement on the acceptance of its 2-D Physical World Connection/Physical World Hyperlink solutions.

The posting was generated by a company, Knobias, that acts as a kind of “BusinessWire” for niche market investment players commonly found in new technology environments.

PhoneCodes(C) are displayed on the screen of the consumer’s cellphone and scanned by a specialized reader optimized to read cellphone display screens. Image Credit: Veritec

This description of Knobias (contributor to NASDAQ) -

Knobias, Inc. (otcbb: KNBS)

Pronounced "no-b-s", provides a wide range of financial information solutions for all sides of the U.S. stock market.

Knobias combines proprietary content & technology into efficient platforms for the consolidation, distribution & targeted presentation of investment decision information for customers & affiliates.

Knobias platforms provide news, filings, fundamentals, transaction databases, calendars, research, tools & analysis for all U.S. equities with a special emphasis on small-caps.

Knobias customers include retail investors, day-traders, buy-side & sell-side professionals, public issuers, financial websites & financial content providers.
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CouponCode(C) allows the consumer to redeem discounts or accrue loyalty points in the time of a quick scan. Image Credit: Veritec

Excerpted from NASDAQ News -

VRTC: Launches New Product Named PhoneCodes
By Jay Everitt, Knobias - August 21, 2007

Veritec, Inc., (VRTC) announced Veritec's launch of a revolutionary new products named PhoneCodes(C) that allow consumers to buy and receive tickets, as well as gift(s), or customer-loyalty rewards via an electronic media using Veritec's 2-D barcode technology.

The Saint Paul (MN) Saints baseball club and their ticket processing company, Glitner Corporation (NY), in conjunction with Veritec, Inc., has become the first organization to employ the new technology.

TicketCode(C) on cellphone display - Image Credit: Veritec

Veritec's new TicketCode(C) (a 2-dimensional bar code) allows cell phone owners to purchase an event ticket and have the ticket (TicketCode(C)) sent to their cell phone. The day of the event the gate attendant will scan the TicketCode(C) from the cell phone, validate its authenticity and admit the patron once validated.
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"There are very few things we don't allow into Midway Stadium," said Saints President Mike Veeck. "The wave and neckties come to mind. No tickets? This is a very cool technology and will revolutionize how we do business." Veeck continued.

To name only a few of it's many other uses, the Veritec's 2-D Barcode, PhoneCodes(C), not only work for the distribution of tickets (TicketCode(C)) but can be used to send gift certificates, GiftCode(C), for birthday, anniversary, graduation, or whatever else, as well as coupons, CouponCode(C), for customer loyalty rewards such as two-meals-for-the-price-of-one at restaurants, discounts on purchases exceeding a certain dollar value at retail stores, and as a receipt when purchasing products over the Internet, a ReceiptCode(C) can be sent to the customer's cell phone as proof of purchase.
Reference Here>>

All of the power of automated symbology in the palm of one's hand ... and now even NASDAQ is on board!

Faceprints As Symbology

University researchers developed the URxD face recognition software that uses a three-dimensional snapshot of a person's face to create a unique biometric identifier. Image Credit: University of Houston via NetworkWorld

Faceprints As Symbology

Who needs a number when you have a face? That’s what we say here at Symblogogy!

Symbologies such as barcodes are rapidly being replaced by other pattern identifiers found through digital conversion.

As noted here a few months ago, ColorCode/ColorZip created a new type of symbology to be used for advertisers that takes a picture of an Ad an and converts it to a type of QR Code based symbology. The purpose here would allow the user access to additional information by taking a photograph with ones phone on the product Ad and digital image converted.

Here in Houston, they have created a different approach to digital conversion and identification. A webcam captures a continuous video stream which is used to detect the face of an individual and converts the images captured to a unique identifier … just like a barcode on a keyfob.

It will only be a matter of time when one can step up in line at the supermarket and have ones loyalty points automatically accrue and discounts awarded through photographic digital conversion as symbology access to database information capture and update.

This from NetworkWorld -

Forget your PIN? Use your face
Submitted by Layer 8 on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 11:49am.

Face recognition as a unique biometric is growing slowly in certain corporate and consumer applications, but researchers at the University of Houston (UH) are trying to make the technology far more ubiquitous and secure: they want it to replace the dozens of personal identification numbers (PIN), passwords and credit card numbers everyone uses every day.

The UH designed and built a prototype field-deployable 3D face recognition system that consists of a 3dMDTM optical scanner using a 1-pod configuration, which is connected to a PC.

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When the subject is facing the camera and remains relatively still for more than two seconds, the system triggers the optical scanner and the 3D data of the individual's face are captured. The system can either enroll the subject into the database, or perform a scenario-specific task. In an identification scenario, the system will display the closest 5 datasets to the operator. In a verification scenario, the system will determine whether the subject is who they claim to be, based on a preset distance threshold, UH says.

The system determines not only the characteristics of each face, but also whether the person is wearing glasses, allowing for a practical system which offers high accuracy. So far, face recognition methods have focused on appearance - capturing, representing, and matching facial characteristics as they appear on two-dimensional images in the visible spectrum. This is quite challenging to machine recognition because such characteristics vary with orientation, age, habits (beard etc)), and illumination. Instead, the UH system uses three-dimensional information.

The system was highly rated by The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in its annual Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2006 and the Iris Challenge Evaluation (ICE) 2006. NIST said the FRVT looks at face recognition from high-resolution still images and three-dimensional (3D) face images, and measures performance for still images taken under controlled and uncontrolled illumination. Face and iris are two biometrics that have been developed over the last 20 years. Face recognition is a vibrant area of biometrics with active research and commercial efforts.

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"Remembering dozens of personal identification numbers and passwords is not the solution to identity theft. PINs and passwords are not only inconvenient to memorize, but also are impractical to safeguard. In essence, they merely tie two pieces of information together; once the secret is compromised, the rest follows. The solution is to be able to tie your private information to your person in a way that cannot be compromised," said Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor of Computer Science and director of the UH Computational Biomedicine Laboratory.

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NIST last year released the Multimodal Biometric Application Resource Kit (MBARK), an open source middleware package that enables you to plug in biometric sensors from different manufacturers. The kit also contains templates and sample apps. All the details and the software can be downloaded from the NIST Web site.
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