Retica, a small Massachusetts-based firm, last month introduced a new handheld device that simultaneously captures images of both irises on an individual in about one second. The company showed off Mobile Eyes at the recent Biometric Consortium Conference. Retica began shipping Mobile Eyes to U.S. military customers beginning in August, Barry Morse, the company’s CEO, tells TR2. Retica received a pair of $1 million contract from the Pentagon’s Biometric Fusion Center to help develop Mobile Eyes as well as develop iris algorithms, he says. Morse says the dual, simultaneous capture feature of Mobile Eyes helps make the device soldier proof. He says that soldiers using single iris capture devices in Iraq and Afghanistan some times enter the wrong image in the database, such as labeling the right iris left and vice versa. Retica wasn’t alone at the Biometric Consortium in introducing a handheld dual iris capture device. So did Cross Match Technologies with its new I SCAN 2 (TR2, Sept. 19). Retica, which has 17 employees, including 12 with doctoral degrees, is also developing a software solution for stand-off iris identification called Eagle Eyes. The system is also able to capture both iris images simultaneously, Morse says. Eagle Eyes will be able to handle 20 individuals per minute at any distance up to 50 meters, making it useful for high volume, high-throughput applications, he says. The system can also capture the irises of people moving at up to four miles per hour, he adds. There are military, government and commercial applications for Eagle Eyes, Morse says. With the explosion of CCTV cameras for surveillance and monitoring, Eagle Eyes, combined with intelligent video analytics and digital video recording technology, will fit well into this integrated environment, he says.
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