One of China's leading mobile phone manufacturers, Bird, developed the country's first cell phone fingerprint verification.

Bird, a Ningbo-based mobile maker listed by IC Insights among the world's top ten mobile producers in 2004, bought the technology from a research team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Automation.

Dai Ruwei, CAS academician and a senior scientist of the CAS institute, said fingerprint verification is the safest and most convenient technology in biological verification. With a soft thumb touch on the mobile's screen, the user can activate the main menu of the mobile.

"The fingerpass mobiles could be widely used for e-banking, e-commerce and other new forms of Internet-based transactions," Dai said.

Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), who was among the national appraisal expert team, said the mobile could compete with other advanced products of the global brands.

Jin Guangtao, deputy general manager of Bird, said that the new technology will cost about only 50 yuan (about US$6). The company will begin equipping most of its high-end products, branded Doeasy, with the technology this year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2005)