FbF mobileOne Case Study

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Every fingerprint is unique. It is this fact that has enabled Fulcrum Biometrics, a provider of biometric technologies, to offer a range of fingerprint products and solutions for use by law enforcement and forensics experts. When Meadow Hill Corporation learned about Fulcrum’s FbF® mobileOne fingerprint scanner, they saw an entirely different way to utilize the technology to create unique and beautiful jewelry and lasting keepsakes. Meadow Hill Corporation is a manufacturer of unique jewelry and keepsakes. Since 1998 Meadow Hill has been providing “impression” keepsakes featuring fingerprints and handprints under their ThumbiesTM brand. Using a lost-wax casting process, Meadow Hill creates unique designs in sterling silver and 14K white or yellow gold. Previously, the acquisition of fingerprints was done using ink strips, similar to those used to fingerprint suspects at police stations. While reasonably effective at capturing fingerprints, the process was messy for the customer and fingerprint images needed to be transferred to digital files before they could be used to create the wax forms for casting. Now, using the FbF mobileOne scanner that snaps onto an iPod Touch or iPhone, along with proprietary software developed by Fulcrum Biometrics, Meadow Hill and their customers can quickly and easily capture high quality digital fingerprint images that translate into lasting, memorable keepsakes.

Fulcrum Biometrics is a leading, US-based vendor in the biometrics space, developing hardware and software solutions that are used by governments and private companies worldwide. Fulcrum’s expertise in Apple iOS application development enabled them to work with Meadow Hill to create the custom Thumbies application.

“The team at Fulcrum Biometrics was exceptionally responsive to our needs. They worked with us to provide not only the FbF mobileOne hardware but also to develop our

custom software. They helped us get our software onto the iTunes store so that our business partners can quickly and easily download the Thumbies software for their iPods or iPhones. We keep coming up with new ways to use this new fingerprint technology and Fulcrum has been with us all the way.”

David Gordon, President, Meadow Hill

 

Meadow Hill Corporation FbF® mobileOne fingerprint scanner for iPhone and iPod Touch enables

Meadow Hill Corporation to create one-of-a-kind keepsakes with the unique beauty and individuality of a loved one’s fingerprint.

Overview Organization: Meadow Hill Corporation manufactures unique jewelry and keepsakes under their ThumbiesTM brand, which features the use of fingerprints in their designs. Need: Meadow Hill, which has used ink-based fingerprinting techniques since they began creating Thumbies in 1998, sought a faster, cleaner, more efficient method of capturing fingerprints that would be easy for Meadow Hill’s customers to use and would provide clear, high-quality digital fingerprint images. Solution: Fulcrum Biometrics worked with Meadow Hill to develop custom software that would work with Fulcrum’s FbF mobileOne fingerprint scanner, enabling customers to use their iPhone or iPod Touch to capture fingerprints and quickly process orders for Meadow Hill’s Thumbies designs. Benefits:

§ Fast and easy: The FbF mobileOne portable fingerprint scanner easily snaps onto an iPhone or iPod Touch.

§ Superior quality: With law enforcement-grade fingerprint scanning capabilities, the FbF mobileOne provides crisp, clear fingerprint images.

§ Custom software: Fulcrum’s FbF development framework and experience working with Apple facilitated the rapid development and approval of the custom Thumbies application.

FbF mobileOne Case Study

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Meadow Hill has built a robust business-to-business reseller model.

Like the bronzed baby shoes of years past, Thumbies have become a modern way for parents to capture lasting, unique impressions of their children to keep themselves or to share with grandparents. The unique and highly personal touch of fingerprint keepsakes have also become popular with those who want memorial keepsakes of elderly loved ones or family members who have passed away.

Meadow Hill has created a unique business model based on selling their products through family organizations and funeral homes who offer Thumbies to their own customers. The FbF mobileOne fingerprint scanner has made this process easier than ever.

Because the FbF mobileOne easily snaps onto an iPod Touch, Meadow Hill can now sell into businesses such as funeral service providers, providing both the fingerprint scanner and their custom Thumbies software. This provides Meadow Hill’s business customers with a unique, value-added product they can offer to their clients while ensuring that each fingerprint taken is as high quality as possible. Customers can easily upload the digital fingerprint files to Meadow Hills Director website, where they can customize a design to the client’s specifications. Files are encrypted for security.

“FbF mobileOne has transformed the way we do business. Now we can offer our customers a new revenue stream for their businesses that is easy, fast and offers high margins. Because of the high quality of the FbF mobileOne fingerprint scanner and the unique capabilities of the custom software Fulcrum Biometrics developed for us, we now get crisp, digital fingerprints with the highest level of clarity, and the end user never gets their hands dirty.”

David Gordon, President, Meadow Hill

FbF mobileOne ensures the highest quality digital fingerprint images.

Fingerprint quality can vary tremendously depending on the age of the person being fingerprinted and the quality of the skin on their hands. People who are older or who have done a lot of work with their hands often have rougher, less clear fingerprints. These changes are the stories life has written on the person’s unique fingerprint and represent not only who they were born to be, but who they became over time.

FbF mobileOne, using the custom Thumbies application, ensures that each fingerprint is captured with enough detail to enable jewelry and other keepsakes to be created using all or part of the fingerprint. More than one fingerprint can be used to create unique designs that, for example, wrap around wedding rings, capturing the individuality of each person.

With the help of Fulcrum Biometrics, Meadow Hill has captured the unique beauty of the fingerprint, while also capturing a new market.

FbF mobileOne With Custom Thumbies

Application The first portable biometric fingerprint scanner for the iPhone and iPod Touch enables users to quickly capture fingerprints with such a high degree of detail it meets US Government standards for use in law enforcement. But the fine digital fingerprint images can also be used in art, jewelry design and a range of other creative and business-oriented applications.  

FbF mobileOne Case Study

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Once Meadow Hill has the digital fingerprint files, they are sent to a special type of computerized routing machine that carves the fingerprint pattern into wax in the shape of the desired piece of jewelry or other keepsake. A mold is created around the wax and the desired precious metal is heated and poured into the mold, melting the wax and leaving imprinted into the metal the one-of-a-kind fingerprint image.

About FbF mobileOne Fulcrum Biometrics introduced the FbF mobileOne biometric accessory for iOS in May 2011. FbF

mobileOne is a sleek-fitting sleeve that easily snaps onto an iPhone or iPod touch while still allowing the device to fit comfortably in a pocket. The FbF mobileOne fingerprint scanner meets the US Government standards for fingerprint image quality (PIV) and has won multiple awards from law enforcement organizations for its ability to improve officer safety and productivity in the field by enabling quick and efficient collection of high-quality fingerprints, reducing the costs and potential risks associated with bringing suspects into departments for processing.

Suitable for use in a wide range of applications, FbF mobileOne also has a companion FbF iOS Library, which makes it easy for application developers to create custom multibiometric (fingerprint and face)-enabled applications running on iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The FbF mobileOne device is available now at www.fulcrumbiometrics.com and from authorized resellers.

About Fulcrum Biometrics Founded in 2002, Fulcrum Biometrics is a leading provider, distributor and integrator of biometric

identification technologies and devices for commercial, civil and military customers in more than 80 countries worldwide. Fulcrum’s offerings include industry-leading biometric software development tools, fingerprint scanners and other biometric sensors as well as custom software development for multiple platforms, custom integration and implementation of identity management applications and access control systems. Fulcrum is the developer of the Fulcrum Biometric Framework (FbF®), a rapid biometric application deployment suite which includes the FbF bioServer, FbF Silverlight Library, FbF Listener, FbF mobileOne and the FbF mobileOne iOS Library.