Biometrics fingerprint scanner in RoR? Is it possible? and how?

rubyonrails-talk
1

This is not a rails question at all. It's a web browser & fingerprint scanner question.

Is there any way to access fingerprint scanner results from a web browser? If so, using RoR to handle the backend of the web application is no different than any other web app. If not, rails certainly can't help you around that roadblock.

2

I'm a graduating student of IT right now and in a couple of months, we'll be starting on a new project in the University. My group and I decided to create a voting system which requires Fingerprint scanner to identify the voters and make the voting process more secured. I still don't know how biometrics fingerprint scanner works exactly and I've just started to do some research.

So my question is, is it even possible that RoR can use a biometrics fingerprint scanner?

I've been searching the net (until now) if there are some tutorials or tips that could help me do this project using RoR..

This is not a rails question at all. It's a web browser & fingerprint scanner question.

Is there any way to access fingerprint scanner results from a web browser? If so, using RoR to handle the backend of the web application is no different than any other web app. If not, rails certainly can't help you around that roadblock.

A lot of these external hardware devices talk to the host computer over USB, and some I have used (barcode scanners) basically pretend to be a keyboard typing really fast. I have no idea how your fingerprint reader is meant to interact with the host computer, but I would start by reading its manual and figuring out how it was meant to connect to a stand-alone PC. Then see how you can go from there. You could have a button to "start" the scanner, which would use JavaScript to shift focus to a hidden text field and wait for the scanner to "type" the results into that field. Poll the field for changes, and after a change and a pause (to avoid catching it half-way through a change) send the form to your Rails server. The rest, as others have said here, is as easy as Rails.

Walter

3

This is not a rails question at all. It’s a web browser & fingerprint scanner question.

Is there any way to access fingerprint scanner results from a web browser? If so, using RoR to handle the backend of the web application is no different than any other web app. If not, rails certainly can’t help you around that roadblock.

Not technically a web browser question, as you could use a native app to handle the interface with the user, the fingerprint scanner, and the backend. However, as Rails is only the backend, there is still no way this can be construed to be a Rails question.

Jim