Biometrics caught my attention years ago as a means for individuals to interface with machines without using a keyboard, mouse or touchpad. This was before 9-11 though, and since then all manner of homeland security funding has inundated the industry. Here’s a government (National Security Agency) founded consortium devoted to the subject. Look at the recent Biometric conference to get a sense of the government and industry interests involved – I will be investigating each as I suspect the advances in the field, like all Defense Department funding targets, will be huge and have interesting and unexpected civilian benefits. These advances may contribute to a better interface to the World Right Now.

“The Biometric Consortium serves as a focal point for research, development, testing,?evaluation, and application of biometric-based personal identification/verification technology.”

http://www.biometrics.org/

There’s also a corresponding industry trade association.

http://www.ibia.org/