Samsung is certainly showing off their technical prowess lately, as if their new LED televisions weren't thin and beautiful enough (I know because I work with them!) they have now teamed up with a rather unheard of German company named Bundesdruckerei to create the world's first passport which has the ability, once activated, to provide a moving well, rotating image of the holder. According to the partnership their new polycarbonate data page, which contains an active matrix bendable 300µm OLED display, capable of displaying video or text regarding the passport holder, is the next thing in border security. The technology doesn't require any battery power to work, instead it is activated by a reader, presumably working for a country's customs branch, which will transfer electricity to the device using induction.
Despite controversy regarding ID cards and the alike, this could be an important breakthrough for international security, potentially reducing the amount of forgeries, should this become a popular means of personal identification.
To this end, Samsung and Bundesdruckerei insist that it is completely hacker proof, and is even heat resistant, so can withstand being laminated, thus making the device more secure to would-be tamperers.
The video showing the technology in its full passport-come I.D. card form can be found through this link.
On the other side, just a few years have passed since the introduction of the digital passport. Technologies are changing too rapidly, hopefully we won't have to upgrade our passports and id cards every year ;-)
In Italy it costs about €40 (+€40 of taxes over it every year). Funny thing is that they are meant to last 10 years, and after one year I had to 'buy' a new one cause the cover got separated from the pages;-)
That's the new 'Made in Italy'.
Fancy Passport looks great, but let's hope Apple won't come out with the iPassport in the future.
They should just try improving the quality of photo's on a passport.
The pic on mine was bad enough when it came out of the supermarket booth but when it was transferred to the passport it was stretched too wide and really over-exposed (plus I look like someone who just escaped a luntaic asylum XD )
What the hell?
On topic: pretty cool.
Unfortunately this would add to the cost of an already expensive passport.
Why not stick the video onto the electronic chip and just read that onto a monitor?
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