6Biometric Technology Today February 2010

C O M P A N Y N E W S

The State of New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission has awarded a seven-year contract valued at US$18 million to L-1 Identity Solutions to provide a secure driver’s license solution. The first year of the contract will include the ramp up and implementation of the new system and the remaining six years will consist of card production and equipment and software maintenance. New Jersey is changing its pre-existing workflow process for driver’s license issuance to incorporate photo-first capabilities as part of the State’s effort to curb identity-related fraud. In addition, the State is implementing a secure card produc-tion solution as part of its over-the-counter system that will exceed the recommended standards set by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and the US Department of Homeland Security, making the cards compliant with proposed standards set forth in the REAL ID Act.Aware has reported financial results for its fourth quarter and year ended 31 December 2009. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were US$5.5 million, a decrease of 55% com-pared to US$12.1 million in the same quarter last year. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2008 included an US$8.5 million patent sale. For the year ended 31 December 2009, revenues decreased 28% to US$22.0 million, compared to US$30.5 million in 2008. Net income for the fourth quarter of 2009, which included a US$6.2 million gain on the sale of assets to Lantiq, was US$5.8 million, or US$0.29 per diluted share.

Nicaragua Rising has completed a share exchange with privately-held company Ceelox. The company entered into a share exchange agreement with the shareholders of Ceelox, pursuant to which it acquired 95.5% of the issued and outstanding common stock. Ceelox was formed in 2003 for the purpose of developing and marketing advanced fin-gerprint biometric technology and encryption software solutions. Sunflower Capital, the company’s majority stockholder prior to com-pletion of the transaction, agreed to the trans-fer and cancellation of all of its 11,091,100 shares of common stock.

L-1 Identity Solutions has been award-ed a contract by the Commonwealth of Kentucky to provide a secure driver’s license solution with facial recognition as part of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s effort to protect the public and prevent fraud. The contract with L-1 includes a base three-year term valued at approximately US$11.1 million and three additional two-year extension options that bring the total contract value to approximately US$33.7 million.

BUSINESS WATCH

patent

Cross Match files suit against Suprema

Cross Match Technologies has announced it filed a lawsuit

against Suprema and Mentalix on 10 February 2010 in the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas.

Suprema is based in Korea and manufactures the RealScan-D portable dual finger live scanner and RealScan-10 compact ten-print live scanner. Mentalix is based in Plano, Texas and distributes those products. Cross Match’s complaint alleges that Suprema’s live scan products infringe four of Cross Match’s patents that protect the company’s proprietary systems and methods, including its patented “auto capture” and rolled fingerprint capture capabilities, which allow for enhanced fingerprint acquisition.

Cross Match seeks a variety of relief from the Court, including a permanent injunc-tion prohibiting Suprema’s and Mentalix’s sale of infringing products, as well as monetary damages, including treble damages for willful infringement and recovery of attorney fees.

partnershiip

Voxeo partners with biometric vendors

Voxeo has announced partnerships with four leading voice biometrics

providers: CSIdentity, PerSay, TradeHarbor and Vocalect. The deal means that exist-ing and prospective Voxeo customers will be able to try, test and deploy voice biometrics as part of existing or new applications on Voxeo’s network.

“A growing number of IT and customer care professionals have indicated that voice authen-tication implementations are on their roadmap for 2010,” said Dan Miller, senior analyst at Opus Research. “An ‘on-demand’ approach, like Voxeo’s, provides the combination of flexibility, reliability and cost-effectiveness that the mar-ketplace requires during this phase of develop-ment and deployment.”

Voxeo enables companies of all sizes to devel-op and deploy IVR and VoIP systems. This announcement offers verification and other voice biometric solutions for every industry, geography, and scenario, the company claims.

Voxeo and its voice biometrics partners have

facilitated an easy-to-use trial process through Voxeo’s Prophecy Hosting and Prophecy On-Premise platforms.

acquisition

Amano USA to acquire Accu-Time Systems

Amano USA Holdings has announced the acquisition of Accu-Time

Systems, a developer, manufacturer, and supplier of biometric and non-biometric terminals to the time and attendance and workforce management industry in the USA (and more recently into Europe and other export markets).

“The acquisition just makes a lot of sense as ATS brings products and innovation that will leverage Amano’s extensive offerings while Amano adds sig-nificant breadth and innovation to ATS,” said Peter DiMaria, President and Founder of ATS.

The companies say that the acquisition of ATS will provide a good synergistic effect to Amano’s sales channels for time and workforce management. In joining the Amano Group of companies, ATS will also gain greater access to overseas markets.

ATS will continue to be led by DiMaria and his management team.

financial results

Precise Biometrics shows record sales

Swedish fingerprint company Precise Biometrics has released encouraging

results for 2009. The group’s net revenue for the financial year amounted to SEK 68.7 million (45.9) and for the fourth quarter to SEK 32.1 million (11.5).

Net income for the financial year amounted to SEK -21.8 million (-54.2), although for the fourth quarter was in the positive at SEK 2.8 million (-35.8).

Important events during the year included an order worth approximately USD 6.0 mil-lion from the US government within the Cyber Security framework. Final delivery of the order will be during the first quarter 2010.

Precise Biometrics also joined a partnership with the Nigerian company Interswitch aimed at developing bank applications for the African market. A first project, worth 200 000 Euros in license sales, has already been initiated.