Summer 2007 may one day go down in geek history as the Age of the Finger. In the last few months, we’ve seen the following:

• Finger vein money: Hitachi’s biometric cardless credit payment system that reads the unique pattern of blood vessels in the fingers to verify an individual’s identity. For identity purposes, finger veins are better even than fingerprints or retinas, because they’re beneath the skin and are thus difficult to counterfeit. Finger vein authentication technology is in use right now in Japan (and elsewhere) to verify identities for ATMs, controlled entries and computer log-in systems. As a commerce enabler, it works like this: you register your finger vein pattern with your credit card company, who pairs this data with your account information. When you want to buy something, you just stick your finger in a vein reader at the cash register and the transaction takes place instantly. [Link]

• Vibrating GPS rings: In conjunction with a GPS controller that you wear around your neck, these rings take you where you want to go by using simple buzzing cues that tell you which direction to take. [Link]

• Wireless 3D ring mouse: Five Worcester Polytechnic Institute undergrads have come up with a wearable mouse that allows users to navigate on their computers simply by moving a finger. The so-called “MagicMouse” works on the principle of time difference of arrival (TDOA), which is the principle that underlies the GPS system. Every 16 milliseconds, receivers detect ultrasound waves emitted by the mouse’s transmitter. Software takes the varying distances between the transmitter and each receiver, as calculated by the differences in the time it takes the sound waves to reach the receivers, and computes the receiver’s location in 3D space. [Link]