New software for smartwatches that verifies signatures
Posted on: 02/Feb/2017 10:04:27 AM
Scientists from the Tel Aviv University, or TAU, have developed a novel software that enables smartwatches, currently worn by one in six people around the world, to verify handwritten signatures.
Speaking about this, the researchers said, A popular device worn by so many people should feature additional, critically useful functions. 373 million of these devices will be in use by 2020. Considering how dependent we are on signatures, we decided to develop software that would verify the smartwatch device wearer`s handwritten signature.
Signing on a digital pad or using a special electronic pen has replaced pen and paper in many instances, but these alternatives often require cumbersome dedicated devices. The software developed by TAI in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and colleagues, would turn any generic smartwatch into an expert signature verifier.
Say the researchers, Using a wrist-worn device such as a smartwatch or a fitness tracker bears obvious advantages over other wearable devices, since it measures the gestures of the entire wrist rather than a single finger or an arm. While several other recent studies have examined the option of using motion data to identify users, this is its first application to verify handwritten signatures - still a requirement at the bank, the post office, your human resources department, etc. Next we plan to compare our approach with existing state-of-the-art methods for offline and online signature verification. We would also like to investigate the option of combining data extracted from the wearable device with data collected from a tablet device to achieve even higher verification accuracy.
