And now, fingerprint mobiles for e-biz!

One of China's leading mobile phone manufacturers will launch the country's first cell phone with an inexpensive fingerprint verification system, which will allow Internet based e-transactions.

Bird, one of the top ten mobile producers in the world in 2004, bought the technology from a research team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation.

"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," said Dai Ruwei, CAS academician and a senior scientist of the CAS institute.

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

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

The deputy general manager of Bird, Jin Guangtao said that the new technology would cost about only 50 yuan (about $6).

The company would begin equipping most of its high-end products with the technology this year, the report said.