more on Age Verification Technology

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Andy.Sullivan () reuters com" <Andy.Sullivan () reuters com>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:22:19 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: [IP] more on Age Verification Technology


Dave, for IP:

I had a chance to kick the tires on this i-Mature technology last night at
the Congressional Internet Caucus tech fair. It's a metal device that looks
sort of like a vise or a minature lemon squeezer -- it measures a segment of
your middle finger when you make a fist. It successfully identified me as
over 18 years old. Shmuel Levin, the comany's president and CEO,
demonstrated the device to me. It can't measure your age exactly, but lumps
you into one of three categories -- under 13, between 13 and 18, and 18 and
over.

Because of its inexact nature it won't work for keeping kids out of porn
sites, or any other application in which you need a hard "under 18/over 18"
bright line. But Mr. Levin said it should work at keeping adults (over 18)
out of chat rooms designated for kids 13 and younger.

There are several hurdles to commercial success, as they'd have to convince
chat rooms to require this identifier and the chat rooms would have to
convince every visitor to buy one. I don't know if the kids' chatroom market
is robust enough for that.

But it did peg me as being over 18, for what that's worth, and I can attest
that Shmuel Levin and Uri Levin do exist.

Thanks,

Andy Sullivan
Reporter, Reuters America Inc.
andy.sullivan () reuters com




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