BioSec Looks to Pong to Help Popularize Palm Vein Scanning Tech

BioSec has found a new way to promote biometric technology to the general public – the company has developed a version of the Pong video game in which the location of the user’s paddle is determined by her hand’s position over BioSec’s palm vein scanner. The game had its premiere at last autumn’s Fujitsu Forum in Munich.

In a statement, the Hungarian firm explained that the game is meant to offer a fun way of familiarizing the general public with biometrics, with CEO Péter Györgydeák asking, “what is better for this than a fun game instead of a boring presentation?” And while the company acknowledges that its game “is not likely to be the PC game of the year”, it offered that it’s “a great way to show that palm vein recognition is not a futuristic thing anymore.”

Of course, other kinds of biometrics are very firmly in the mainstream today. There is no need to familiarize consumers with fingerprint scanning, for example, given its ubiquity as a feature of contemporary smartphones; and even if relatively few consumers could afford the iPhone X, its facial recognition technology received publicity such that a large chunk of the market is at least somewhat familiar with how it works.

Palm vein scanning, meanwhile, is still a niche technology, so much so that BioSec has evidently felt compelled to make a game around it. And even if BS Palm Pong doesn’t catch on the way the original Pong did in the 70s, it could make an impression, at least, on the users who are able to give it a try.