A hearable device jointly developed by NEC and Foster Electric (Photo: NEC)
NEC announced on the 27th that it will start selling services for corporations that provide biometric authentication functions and wearer monitoring functions through earphone-type hearable terminals and cloud infrastructure from October. It is expected to be used in a wide range of situations, such as telework environments, as well as factories and construction sites.
It is characterized by providing the function of "ear acoustic authentication", which is one of biometric authentication. It is realized by combining a completely wireless hearable terminal jointly developed with Foster Electric and software on a cloud platform.
Otoacoustic authentication is a technology that identifies an individual based on individual differences in the characteristics of echoes from the ear canal. It can be used even when wearing a mask, gloves, and glasses, and has the advantage of being difficult to impersonate because it authenticates using the structure inside the ear. NEC says that it will lead to stronger security measures in the telework environment, such as using it for personal authentication of operators at home call centers, for example.
The hearable terminal also has an active noise canceling function that captures ambient noise during voice calls and cancels out noise components. It can cut the loud noise generated in factories and construction sites, and can be used for applications such as converting speech into text using a speech recognition engine and giving voice instructions to systems.
By analyzing data from the device's built-in motion sensors, temperature sensors, etc. on the cloud, it is possible to detect impacts on the wearer's head and activity status, as well as remotely monitor the wearer.
The usage fee starts from 3800 yen (excluding tax) per user per month. Includes usage fees for hearable terminals and cloud infrastructure. The minimum configuration is 30 users and the contract period is from 2 years. The hearable terminal is a product that was sold to general consumers through Makuake's crowdfunding service "Makuake" in 2020, and was decided to be offered as a new corporate solution.
