bio-, bi-, -bia, -bial, -bian, -bion, -biont, -bius, -biosis, -bium, -biotic, -biotical
(Greek: life; living, live, alive)
Don’t confuse this element with another bi- which means "two".
The most important things in life are not things.
Fingerprint payment, based on fingerscanning, is the most common biometric payment method. Often, the system uses two-factor authentication, in which the finger scan takes the place of the card swipe and the user types in a PIN (personal ID number) as usual.
In the United States, biometric payment has gained popularity in grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores. In March 2006, "Pay By Touch", the leading biometric payment provider, reported that more than two million customers had enrolled in their biometric services and that "Pay By Touch" had authenticated approximately eight billion dollars in transactions.
The system of biometric payments is controversial. Traditionally, fingerprints have been associated with law enforcement. Critics of biometric payment fear that fingerprints could be made available to government agencies or law enforcement officials.
Biometric payment service providers are quick to point out that they don't keep the customer's actual fingerprint in their databases. They keep an encrypted number derived from the finger's point-to-point measurements. It is that number which is used to verify a customer's identity, not the actual fingerprint.
In the final analysis, a biometric payment system; like any system that accesses sensitive information, is only as secure as the associated databases and transactions.
Unique identifiers include fingerprints, hand geometry, earlobe geometry, retina and iris patterns, voice waves, DNA, and signatures.
The oldest form of biometric verification is fingerprinting. Historians have found examples of thumbprints being used as a means of unique identification on clay seals in ancient China.
Biometric verification has advanced considerably with the advent of computerized databases and the digitization of analog data, allowing for almost instantaneous personal identification.
2. A person who uses statistical techniques to analyze biological data.
This definition is a recent application from the tech world [a recently created application]. This sense of biometrics should not be confused with the much older sense, which refers to the application of statistical and mathematical methods for data analysis in the biological sciences. Also known as biometry (as shown in the next word group), this use of the term has been in the language since the early 1900s.
2. Quantification of psychopathological differences between subjects, specifically by assessing each subject across multiple dimensions. In psychiatry, those dimensions include sensation, perception, cognition, learning, psychophysiological reactions, and personality traits and characteristics.
More info about the science of biometrics.
2. The measurement of life; the calculation of the average duration and expectation of life.
3. The application of mathematics to biology; especially, the study of resemblances between living things by statistical methods.
4. In the field of life insurance, the calculation of life expectancy.
2. A microscope used with a slit lamp for viewing segments of the living eye.
2. Examination of the cornea, aqueous humor, lens, vitreous humor, and retina by use of a slitlamp combined with a binocular microscope.
If you would like to take a series of self-scoring quizzes over some of the words in this bio- unit, then click this Life, Live, Living Quiz link so you can check your knowledge. You may also try several additional quizzes in this listing.
