Secure Design Kk Share Discussion Threads

[andrbea] 02/8/2006 15:35

vein technology in Japan

The tie-up between JR and the savings bank unit of Japan Post could substantially increase use of the Suica service from cards. According to a report today in the Nihon Keizai, Japan Post has more than 110 million ATM cards on issue for its savings account holders, about 70 million of them active. It has been planning to begin replacing these magnetic-stripe ATM cards with smart cards in October to increase security. The cards were to carry only a contact chip, supporting such security features as a finger-vein biometric identifier on cardholders.

20 July

[andrbea] 27/7/2006 13:24

put the 2 articles: it all seems a bit contradictory to me.

looking out for a possible reverse takeover

looking to expand into the Middle East and Africa.

[andrbea] 27/7/2006 13:22

more info dd July 15

[andrbea] 24/7/2006 09:49

with fujitsu & hitachi in the vanguard of vein technology, biometrics IMO may be dominated by the Japanese for years to come (.. and sdkk is the first listed Japanese company on AIM)

eg Hitachi:

In the foreseeable future biometric access protection systems will replace car keys, Hitachi's chief strategist with respect to IT and telecommunication matters, Mitsuo Yamaguchi has said. "Then we will simply stick a finger in the slot design for that purpose, the door will open and the seat will automatically adjust to our settings," he added.

[andrbea] 24/7/2006 08:33

Fujitsu has realised that germaphobia is at an all time high, so has therefore created a contactless palm vein scanner. Here's the process: You go into your bank where they take a scan of one of your hands. The scan reads your unique vein pattern (essentially a map of the veins in your hand), and stores it on your ATM card. Then when you go to use your card to make a purchase or take cash out, all you have to do is place your hand above the scanner. The ATM then compares its scan with the scan stored on your card. If they match then authorisation is complete. Some banks in Japan have already been equipped with this technology, and Fujitsu isn't limiting it there. Akira Kuroki, general manager of Fujitsu's Ubiquitous Systems Group said "You could also use it to get into your house, and to access your PC or terminal". That's handy.

[andrbea] 21/7/2006 11:13

Tks for that rivaldo
having added rcg to my favorites.

I agree with japan likes japan
hitachi and fujitsu are hot on vein technology just now.

ckn has done well since I left..

by the way the shares with a solid profit basis on AIM often getting a low share price
don't ask me why...

sometimes it's best just to ride the wave.

some other whoosh shares of late
cwp, cch, loq and oto (I hold all 4)

and hml (news season) is worth a look too, up till Aug 17

cheers

[rivaldo] 21/7/2006 10:45

Hi andreab, long time no see since CKN!

Have you looked at RCG? They're in the same areas as SDKK, but with added RFID capabilities. Moreover they're only valued at 3 times SDKK but are on a current year P/E of just 7.5 whilst paying a divi and issuing a "substantially ahead" trading statement for this H1...

When I compare the two stocks I just can't see the justification for a £30m m/cap for loss-making SDKK on such tiny turnover other than a miniscule free float and a liquidity squeeze on IPO. Especially with the need for a cash call soon. Which probably means it'll get squeezed up to £1.50!

[andrbea] 21/7/2006 08:53

Biometric tool works by measuring blood vessel patterns
Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 5:56 PM CET



In the not-too-distant future, trips to your bank or office may include a little palm reading. With its first round of funding, Snowflake Technologies is betting that its vein-viewing technology will become the new standard in biometrics.

Using the same near-infrared scan technology developed by its parent company, Luminetx, Snowflake plans to bring to market next year a device to verify an individual's identity by reading vein patterns in the palm.

[andrbea] 21/7/2006 08:52

Not everyone wants to use fingerprint systems because of the connotations of criminality which stem from its origins in identifying criminals, meaning that other biometrics - such as palm vein - are also gaining momentum, she said.

As government and businesses look for better ways of checking identity - whether at airports or at cash machines - new forms of biometric are being developed.

According to a recent survey only around five per cent of businesses are using biometrics. But as projects such as the ID cards scheme start to be implemented, the use of biometric security systems is likely to become more pervasive.



20.7.06

[andrbea] 20/7/2006 12:42

The company designs a slew of products, outsourcing the manufacturing, which are primarily sold in Japan, though a North American and European push is about to begin. Products, from which margins of 50 per cent are achievable, range from integrated systems to mobile devices and provide high levels of security for clients.

One such product is the 'ITube', which Takahashi describes as a 'USB memory stick with embedded authentication hardware and software'.

Secure Design lacks any established trading track record, though encouraging revenues of £477,272 were scored for the five months to the end of May. Nevertheless Takahashi is upbeat about growth prospects, with the global market for biometrics growing at 30 per cent annually for security within personal, commercial, government and military organisations and set to reach US$6 billion in 2010.

Global governments, including the UK, have adopted or are looking at incorporating biometrics into passport and national ID card systems. As biometric technology becomes more commonplace in national identification schemes, Secure Design believes commercial applications will proliferate, leading to expansion into the financial, IT, telecommunications and medical sectors.

As well as organic growth, Secure Design, which raised 600 million Yen (£2.8 million) privately pre-float, plans to use its AIM listing to raise its profile and will likely tap the market for acquisitions in the future both at home in Japan and abroad.

[andrbea] 20/7/2006 09:49

biometrics is everywhere

european passports 2008-2009

door access control

and even mobiles:

Biometrics for secure mobile communications

As mobile devices become increasingly ubiquitous and play ever more significant roles in our lives, ensuring the trustworthiness and security of the information being exchanged has never been more important. But clearly, strong security should not be at the expense of user acceptance. European researchers are employing biometrics and digital signing to provide a solution.
Though security applications that verify a person's identity based on their physical attributes, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners, have been in use for some time, biometric security has only recently started to appear in mobile phones, PDAs and notebook computers where the need for miniaturisation represents a technological challenge.

[andrbea] 19/7/2006 15:46

the telling sentence IMO:

Snowflake is the first U.S. company to develop vein-reading technology. Its only competitors are two firms in Japan that have products coming to market.

[andrbea] 19/7/2006 15:25

vein technology

July 12, 2006

Snowflake, incorporated in 2005, raised $2 million more in its initial round of investment than Luminetx, which launched the VeinViewer in 2004. That technology illuminates veins up to an inch beneath the skin, making it a cinch for doctors and nurses to find them -- handy if needles drive you nuts, but potentially lifesaving if you need emergency intravenous treatment.

A biometric company that raises $6 million in its first try is "worth noticing," said Victor Lee, senior consultant at the International Biometric Group.

"It's a signal that people are beginning to value biometrics as an interesting potential investment. And not just in the biometrics community, but everywhere."

The market for biometrics, the science of using personal biology as an identity system -- is worth $1.7 billion today.

"It will more than triple by 2010 to $5.6 billion," Lee said, as the number of "government projects and private-sector deployments increase" in areas that also include face recognition and voice recognition on technology as personal as cell phones and handheld computers.

Biometrics are increasingly included in time clocks to prevent buddies from punching in for absentees at work. There are also untold applications in catching fraud in voter registration and welfare checks.

Snowflake is the first U.S. company to develop vein-reading technology. Its only competitors are two firms in Japan that have products coming to market.

"Our patents give us a strong foundation in the U.S.," said Brad Silver, head of business development at Snowflake.

"We are going to come up with products that companies will implement as well as selling the necessary software to run the systems," he said.

Unlike fingerprints, a hand scan leaves no print behind that can fall into the wrong hands.

"Veins are never going to leave a print behind. They are part of you and you pick them up and leave when you go," he said.

Iris scans have also proven troublesome because they are "difficult for people with certain types of corrective eyewear and contacts," Silver said.

"We will be competitive with other biometrics. Snowflake has technical features and benefits that we are optimistic will allow us to play at the high end of the market."

[andrbea] 19/7/2006 09:33

this from 24.2.06

Alongside resellers of modules, distributors also play an important part of the Company's strategy to reach regional markets. A distributor typically has a greater knowledge of the biometric technology and can give regional customers technical support concerning integration issues. The distributors market the Company's complete technology portfolio in their respective regions. In December the Company signed a distributor licence agreement with Japanese Secure Design Institute Co. (SDI) which will represent Fingerprint Cards on the Japanese market. SDI, which has the same owners as Technoimagia, also placed an order in December valued at MSEK 3.3, for delivery during the first half of 2006. The order is for complete systems based on the FPC area sensor, to be integrated into SDI's new product series ITube, which is an IT security product introduced in different versions for secure logon to Windows, as a USB memory, and for identification over the internet as well as for encryption of e-mails.

New markets opening



The Company's distributor in Taiwan, Hardware and Software Technologies Co. (HST), is also active on the Chinese market. In a co-operation with a Chinese company HST has developed a biometric IT security system based on FPC sensor technology. In November HST received its first order for this system from a Chinese bank, for a logon application for the bank's computer network, and this resulted in an order for sensors to the Company of MSEK 0.8. Using the Company's fingerprint technology HST has also developed a personal safe for security of valuables that is marketed to hotels and offices in Taiwan and China.



Direct involvement in projects



Proximity to regional markets and local knowledge of resellers and distributors are effective tools for reaching the end customers. Larger OEM enterprises, or product developers running more technically advanced projects, ones aimed at integrating the fingerprint technology in high volume products, do prefer direct contact with the core technology developer. The Company has for some time been engaged in several interesting and very advanced volume projects. Two of these cases concern integration of the complete fingerprint verification system in standard plastic cards. One project concerns a smart (chip) card and the other a magnetic swipe card aimed for the debit and credit card markets. Beyond the storage of the cardholder's biometric data, the scanning and matching of the finger information takes place on the card itself before it can be used for a transaction. In both cases the Company's swipe sensor system is being used and the magnetic swipe card will be powered by leaf thin embedded chargeable batteries. The big advantage with these self-supporting cards is that the built up infrastructure of card readers and software need not be changed. Prototypes of both cards have been developed and should a decision to commercialise a card be taken by the Company's customer then Fingerprint Cards has a strong position because of its extremely power efficient swipe sensor system.





Technology development


New FPC modules introduced at the beginning of the year enable a fast and simplified integration of biometrics into different customer specific products thereby shortening the lead-time for the Company's customers in their own product development. Developed in the latter part of 2004 these are stand-alone modules where sensor, processor and algorithm have been integrated to one unit and with a simple well-defined communication interface to the customer application. Production commenced in January, and the first deliveries to customers began in the second quarter.



Consistent with its business model the Company dedicates a substantial part of technology development during each year to keeping pace with industrialization processes, making preparation for volume production of the Company's sensors. In particular measures were taken in 2005 to make production of the area sensor packaging more efficient, to support increased output to customers at lower cost, and to meet the growing demand for delivery of sensors and modules in 2006.

Work continued with the development of identification algorithm components based on systems using FPC area sensor technology, where significant customer gains can be achieved in the removal of cards or similar tokens from the operation of access control systems. The Company, its resellers and distributors, continue to see growing demand for such configurations of fingerprint systems components in a market where there is little robust product available. In particular the Company sees strong development potential here based on the superior quality of the image produced by its sensor technology.

[kamitora] 19/7/2006 07:23

The 31.4M shares 'issued on introduction' is a bit misleading - that's the total number of shares that exist and as far as I can tell most are tightly held. There doesn't seem to be any stock to trade in the UK so every small buy is pushing up the price.

Small mention in the Independent today:

In the small caps, Secure Design continued its excellent start to life as a quoted company, adding another 17p to close at 101.5p. The first Japanese group to list on AIM started trading on Friday at just 47p per share, and brokers are enthusiastic about its potential in the rapidly growing fingerprint and identification market, which the company expects to grow to more than $6bn per year by 2010.

[mistertibbs] 18/7/2006 19:52

I meant introduction...those bloody ys getting in the way. Thank goodness for boxers. Who you playing for now Lorenzo? Glasgow Rangers miss you!!

[amorruso] 18/7/2006 16:41

Yes it is in addition.

[mistertibbs] 18/7/2006 16:22

Will that be in addition to the 31,400,000 shares issued on an introducyion?

[kamitora] 18/7/2006 10:57

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Secure Design, a Japanese company that offers fingerprint authentication products to companies and individuals that wish to establish high levels of security using biometrics, said Friday that it has placed 50,000 shares at 47 pence per share on AIM.



i.e. after only placing 50,000 shares there seems to be a desperate shortage of stock.

[robbi123] 17/7/2006 15:05

* Secure Design offers fingerprint authentication products

- using biometrics to establish high levels of security which can be
tailored to specific client needs

- ITube(TM), USB memory stick with embedded authentication hardware and
software

- acquires proprietary technologies, products, research and development
technologies from Technoimagia on 28 December 2005

* Demand for Biometrics estimated to be increasing by 30% per annum

- Worldwide demand for biometrics is estimated to be increasing by
approximately 30% per year for security in personal, commercial, government
and military organisations

- Market estimated to grow from US $2 billion in 2006 to US $6 billion in
2010

- new opportunities as biometric applications move into commercial markets
including financial, IT, telecommunications and medical industries

* Platform for organic growth and selective acquisitions

- Strategy to acquire both domestically in Japan and internationally through
acquisition of other biometric technology and biometric services companies