A VOICE recognition system to make transactions over the Internet secure was among the products at this year's CeBIT show in Hanover. The technology by Belgian firm Keyware Technologies is based on a speech verification engine". Keyware says development is in its final phase and first deliveries are expected by the summer.
Keyware, founded only last year and with offices in Brussels and Massachusetts, aims to be the leading provider of biometric authentication technologies for enhanced security. Biometrics is the use of body characteristics, such as hand or fingerprints or the retina, to identify a person.
Over 6,800 exhibitors are taking part in this year's CeBIT, the world's largest exhibition for computer-related industries. The Internet was obviously a major theme at the seven-day event in Hanover, which ends next Wednesday - particularly new delivery systems and faster access speeds. But the exhibition has also been a showcase for the new telecom companies which are limbering up in preparation for the liberalisation of the German market next year.
. Luxembourg's Societe Europeenne des Satellites and Intel are to deliver video and other multimedia services directly to PCs via satellite. Their European Satellite Multimedia Services (EMS), due to begin operating later this year, will transmit 10 megabytes of data in 2.2 seconds, compared with today's ISDN telephone lines, which would take over 20 minutes.
. US Robotics showed its new line of products for digital subscriber line (DSL) access. Again, this promises much faster Internet-intranet access than standard dial-up modems.
. Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said several German PC companies had agreed to use its forthcoming AMD K6 processor. "There will be an announcement in Munich on April 4th," said an AMD product manager.
. Deutsche Telekom announced an increased co-operation between its online service T-Online and Microsoft. Most of T-Online's 1.4 million subscribers access the service over Telekom's high-speed Integrated Digital Services Network (ISDN), at speeds three to four times that of conventional analogue modems.
. Intel also shed more light on its next microprocessor, the Pentium II. And along with Microsoft it displayed a "NetPC", equipped with the Pentium II.