CALIFORNIA BIOMETRIC COMPUTER SECURITY COMPANY UPEK ATTENDS 'THINK FEST' ON INNOVATION IN CHINA Inside Bay Area - Business News

What does Emeryville businessman Alan Kramer have in common with China's vice premier Zeng Peiyan, German Chancellor Angela Markel and the chief executives of the world's largest companies?

They are all among the people who gathered this past week at the annual "think fest" known as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Kramer, founder of biometrics startup UPEK Inc., was among the 2,340 of the world's most influential people attending the forum, along with Richmond recycling inventor Michael Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers Inc.; Emeryville biotechnologist Jay Keasling, founder of Amyris Biotechnologies Inc.; and Jay Wohlgemuth, co-founder of South San Francisco's XDx Inc.

Kramer, Biddle, Keasling and Wohlgemuth are not household names along the lines of Bill Gates and Bono — two newsmakers in recent World Economic Forum meetings.

Yet the founders of these local companies were invited to the globe's most prestigious business and political meeting because they are "technology pioneers," according to the World Economic Forum. The forum named 36 companies from around the globe as technology pioneers because they are "involved in the development of life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society." Twelve of the 36 pioneers are from California.

"I'm excited just to be recognized on that scale and be in the presence of those types of leaders," Kramer of UPEK said during an interview before the forum began. "But also being there and hearing what people are talking about might open up other ideas for our company," he said. Though he speaks humbly, Kramer does not dispute that the company he formed is a technology pioneer.

"In a matter of only a few years, UPEK succeeded to drive a technology considered essentially experimental to one quickly gaining mainstream acceptance" from major electronics companies, he said.
UPEK pioneered a way to detect the subtle changes in the electrical field emanating from human skin to create a fingerprint swipe security system that is much smaller, lighter, cheaper and more reliable than fingerprint security systems that have existed before.

In this day when incidents of data stolen from computers are frequent and identity theft is a common scare, the biometric sensors from UPEK fairly quickly found a market.

IBM puts them in its ThinkPad T43 notebook computers. Fujitsu puts them in cell phones sold in Japan. Government agencies use them at security checks for building entrances.

The older fingerprint security technology used optical scanners that essentially take digital pictures of fingerprints and match them with stored pictures of those allowed access to a device or building. But these systems have always been somewhat large — too large to install in notebook computers for which lightness is a characteristic.

UPEK's sensors use analog technology or analog chips to measure changes in the electrical field that emanates from human skin. The sensor, therefore, detects the ridges and valleys of the groves on a fingertip.

Previously, the idea of putting an optical scanner in a laptop or cell phone was blocked by the added size and weight — and thus inconvenience. UPEK's biometric scanner is only 3/4- by 1/2-inch large. Last year, IBM sold 1 million of its ThinkPads with the biometric sensor. UPEK also signed deals with laptop makers Sony, Acer and NEC.