I haven’t created one of these Google NotebookLM “explainers” in a while, so I thought I’d take a shot at a new one. Will this speak to audiences who weren’t motivated by the earlier video?
Tag Archives: Google
Login.gov mDL Acceptance: Good and Bad News
Login.gov mDL acceptance (mobile driver’s licenses) for identity verification is live. Sort of. It depends on the wallet you use.
As Biometric Update announced, Login.gov now accepts mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) from some wallets. As I write this, the “Accepted ID types” page states that mDLs are accepted “in select digital wallets, including Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet. Availability depends on your state, device, and wallet. We’re working to support additional digital wallets.”
I have questions.
I think it’s fairly obvious that they don’t accept IDs in Apple digital wallets. If they did, they’d certainly say so.
But what about state-specific digital wallets, such as the California and Louisiana digital wallets? They don’t say, so I guess you just have to try them and see if they work.
If Login.gov doesn’t accept your mDL, grab your physical wallet; those IDs always work.
If you want to keep track of curated identity, biometrics, and technology news such as this, subscribe to the Bredemarket blog.
My Fake Book…and My Real One
Inspired by Alan Beck’s Facebook post.
This book about how to pretend you’re an A.I expert on social media is a GAME CHANGER 🔥
Chapter 3, page 47: steal other people’s posts that are going viral and post them as your own.
Why didn’t I think of that?
But if you haven’t already figured it out, Alan’s book in the last picture—and my book in the next picture—are fake.
Although perhaps I could slop the book. Here’s the introduction; Google Gemini just has to write the rest.
Google Gemini’s Introduction to the book Buy Anything You See on the Internet Using AI
In today’s endless digital marketplace, the challenge is rarely finding something to buy—it is finding the exact thing you want amidst an ocean of results. Whether you spot a sleek pair of sneakers in a passing crowd, a unique piece of vintage furniture in a background photo, or an unnamed kitchen gadget featured in a short video clip, traditional search engines often fail us. Keying in descriptive keywords like “blue patterned tie” or “retro desk lamp” usually yields thousands of irrelevant listings, leaving shoppers feeling frustrated. Artificial intelligence changes this equation entirely, turning any image, screenshot, or vague idea into an instant, actionable doorway to purchasing.
This book serves as your complete blueprint for mastering AI-driven shopping tools to locate and buy virtually anything you encounter online or in the physical world. By leveraging multimodal AI models, visual recognition engines, and smart browser extensions, you can bypass traditional keyword search limitations altogether. You will learn how to feed real-world visual input into AI systems, extract hidden metadata, track down obscure suppliers, compare prices dynamically across global storefronts, and verify product authenticity before committing your hard-earned money.
Navigating this new era of commerce requires more than just knowing which apps to download; it demands a strategic understanding of how AI interprets visuals, text, and seller reputations. As automated agents and smart shopping assistants become more integrated into our daily browsing habits, the boundary between seeing an item and owning it has virtually disappeared. By the time you finish this guide, you will possess the practical skills and confidence needed to turn any visual discovery on the internet into a seamless, successful purchase.
Chapter Outline
- Chapter 1: The Death of the Keyword – Understanding how visual AI and multimodal models are replacing traditional search engines in e-commerce.
- Chapter 2: Master of the Snap – How to take, crop, and optimize photos and screenshots for maximum AI visual recognition accuracy.
- Chapter 3: Decoding the Unseen – Using AI vision tools to identify brand names, materials, and design details from obscure or low-resolution images.
- Chapter 4: The Global Sourcing Engine – Reverse-image searching and prompt engineering techniques to find original manufacturers, wholesale suppliers, and direct distributors.
- Chapter 5: Smart Bargain Hunting – Automating price comparisons, tracking dynamic discount codes, and setting up intelligent price-drop alerts.
- Chapter 6: Dodging Scams & Knockoffs – Leveraging AI to analyze seller trustworthiness, verify product reviews, and spot counterfiet listings.
- Chapter 7: The Future of Autonomous Shopping – How AI agents will soon handle product selection, negotiation, and automated checkout on your behalf.
John again, plugging a REAL book
Once I saw the first words of the introduction, I groaned. Endless digital marketplace?
But if you have an interest in the factors of identity verification and authentication, I know of a real book you can buy….my book.
Why are identity verification and authentication important? How do you perform identity verification and authentication?
Drawing on over 30 years of expertise in biometrics and identity technology, I go beyond the traditional three-factor and five-factor models to explore a comprehensive six-factor framework. From the vulnerability of passwords to the innovative science of DNA and behavioral biometrics, this book provides a deep dive into how we prove who we are—and how fraudsters try to stop us.
Here are the contents of the real book:
- Preface
- Introduction
- The First Factor: Something You Know
- The Second Factor: Sonething You Have
- The Third Factor: Something You Are
- The Fourth Factor: Something You Do
- The Fifth Factor: Somewhere You Are
- The Sixth Factor: Somewhat You Why
- Multi-Factor Authentication
- Conclusion
Interested? Click the image below.
70RDA126R00000001 Bidders, Did You Ask For an Extension Also?
If your firm is bidding DHS Solicitation 70RDA126R00000001, did you ask for a due date extension?
On behalf of its client, Bredemarket did.
Because it will take time to complete fingerprint Tab A and Tab B, face tab A and tab B, iris tab A and tab B, and so forth.
As experienced biometric pros know, that’s a lot of Tab.
I argue with a bot
And in related news, I argued with Gemini.
It argued that any due date extension would be short because the Government must receive proposals before the end of the fiscal year.
I replied that even with the original due date, there’s no way they’d make awards before September 30.
Gemini begged to differ.
The September 30 fiscal year-end (EOFY) deadline is critical for procurement teams even when final task-order awards won’t occur until the next fiscal year:
Obligating the Minimum Guaranteed Spend: Under FAR requirements for IDIQ contracts, the government must obligate funds to satisfy the “minimum guarantee” at the time the umbrella IDIQ contract is executed. For this vehicle, Section B.3(a) specifies a $250.00 minimum guarantee per awarded contractor per track. To count those base IDIQ execution actions against FY2026 appropriated funds before they expire on midnight September 30, the Contracting Officer must sign the base IDIQ contracts on or before September 30.
Accelerated HTRO Evaluation Model: The evaluation structure for
70RDA126R00000001uses Highest Technically Rated Offerors with Fair and Reasonable Price (HTRO-FRP). Because this is a pass/fail-style technical evaluation without complex cost-realism trade-offs, DHS specifically designed the evaluation strategy to execute initial IDIQ base contract awards within 7 to 10 days of the September 18 submission.
Prepositioning Vehicle Seats for Day-1 FY2027 Task Orders: Establishing the master GWAC IDIQ base awards in FY2026 allows participating DHS components and external agencies to issue task order solicitations immediately when new FY2027 funding arrives on October 1.
Avoiding Anti-Deficiency Act Complications: Funding to stand up the administrative vehicle itself (such as setting up track minimums) must be committed using current-year funds. Letting the vehicle slip into October without awards could create procurement administrative delays or require re-justification under the incoming fiscal year’s budget.
The September 18 deadline isn’t aimed at completing task-order hardware purchases before September 30; it exists so the Contracting Officer can execute the base IDIQ master contracts and obligate the $250 minimums before FY2026 funds expire on September 30.
Could you imagine asking Google Bard a similar question in 2023?
Why Big Companies Can’t Perform Identity Verification Themselves
When someone asked on LinkedIn why IDScan.net had all that personably identifiable information in the first place, I remembered something about the ability to perform identity verification. Specifically, I remembered one significant sentence from my paradox of identity verification. Emphasis mine.
“To prevent fraud you have to risk fraud by giving selfie plus ID to a firm you don’t know—not Meta or Hertz, but a third party vendor you don’t know.”
Look at simple (?) facial recognition, which Amazon and Google and Meta could perform if they weren’t scared of their own customers. (That fear may have subsided.)
What is identity verification?
But identity verification is much more complex.
- Yes, it includes facial recognition as well as related disciplines such as presentation attack detection and injection attack detection.
- But it also includes analysis of a government-issued secure document such as a driver’s license or passport. This analysis checks some of the document’s security features to determine whether it is authentic.
- Then it naturally compares the live face against the driver’s license face to see if they belong to the same person.
- And in many cases that’s not enough, as identity verification goes beyond who you are and what you have. That includes checking state or provincial motor vehicle records to confirm that the motor vehicle agency knows about this license it supposedly entered.
- Or it checks credit records, utility records, and the like to confirm that a person is associated with an address, a birthdate, or other personally identifiable information.
- Or, and as long as they’re at it, the identity verification process ensures you’re not on an anti-money laundering (AML) sanctions list, a list of politically exposed persons (PEP), or a similar blocklist. Hertz may not care, but Bank of America certainly does.
So who can do all of this?
Who can’t perform identity verification
I will tell you who can’t.
Meta can’t do all this, and neither can Amazon or Google.
And Hertz can’t do all this either, and neither can Bank of America or Jerry Rainbow’s Cannabis Shoppe.
Why? Because multi-billion dollar companies, and Jerry, don’t understand all the skills needed. Sure Amazon can route goods within warehouses, but it doesn’t know squat about ghost images or microprinting, much less how to check PEP lists.
Who can perform identity verification
So Meta et al outsource their identity verification work to companies that most of you don’t know.
But I do. I worked at Incode for a year and analyzed over 80 of its competitors while I was there.
(Dirty little secret: NONE of these identity verification vendors author ALL their algorithms. Sure they may own intellectual property for certain tasks, but they buy the other tasks from other suppliers.)
But who are you?
Are you a large company trying to understand the identity verification market?
Are you an identity verification company trying to understand your own market?
Do you need confidential help to analyze and plan the impossible?
Perhaps Bredemarket’s identity verification and product marketing expertise is what you need.
Talk to me.
Oh, as a postscript: remember when I created three similar videos last Saturday night? I also created a fourth one just for the identity folks.
Stupid Excel Tricks; Targeted Worksheets Display What Project Stakeholders Need
When I manage projects for Bredemarket clients using Microsoft Excel, my workbooks contain targeted worksheets that may or may not interest all the client stakeholders. I’m finally recognizing this and acting accordingly.
Whether you use Excel or something else, data filtering always benefits your stakeholder customers.
A sample Excel project management workbook
Lately I’ve fallen into the habit of organizing Bredemarket client projects in Microsoft Excel. Why? Because my stakeholders (even in Google shops with Sheets) already have the software to read the files.
Excel and many other applications organize their data in one or more tabs (worksheets). Each tab features different data, presented in different ways at the discretion of the project manager. For example, a product marketing workbook may contain these worksheet tabs:
- A summary view (Product Summary) of a product’s base offering, options, and prices.
- A more detailed view (Product Detail) of the product base / option prices and costs.
- An even more detailed view of certain supported features (Product Features) mapped to the base and options, along with detailed descriptions.
- Candidate features for product versions (Candidate Features), and their statuses.
- A view of prospects and the features they desire (Prospect Features), highlighting the desired features covered and not covered in the product.
You can see how all these worksheets could tie together. A prospect’s feature on the last tab that is approved and completed (double blind fingerprint verification) will ripple through all the other tabs. But an unapproved feature (geolocation in latitude-longitude at which a latent print was captured) would only appear on the last two tabs.
So what if recipients get more than the targeted worksheets?
Because of some things that have happened over a recent period, it finally penetrated my thick skull that just because all this data is critically important to ME to manage the project, some of it may bear no importance to OTHERS.
For example, the stakeholder that simply wants to know how much the product base and options cost doesn’t care about the features we never implemented for the Bullhead City Police Department.
At the same time, an outside developer is only interested in the features that we want to implement for the 1.3 release. Other than as background information, the developer doesn’t care which prospect(s) want the feature. And the developer doesn’t care—and perhaps shouldn’t even know (because privacy and security)—how much we price an option containing a particular feature.
Then I acted to only distribute targeted worksheets
Before all of this penetrated my thick skull, I would distribute entire workbooks and tell selected stakeholders to check the third and fourth worksheets and ignore the rest.
That’s dumb.
Why not give these selected stakeholders ONLY the targeted worksheets that are pertinent to them? More work for me to preserve the full view (all worksheet tabs) AND the targeted views, but much less work and much less confusion for the stakeholders.
I’m already doing this with one client. When it’s time to discuss features for future product releases, I’m only distributing the equivalent of the “Candidate Features” tab. This helps focus the discussion.
(I’m also filtering the rows that appear in the tab, but filtering is a topic for another discussion. And I’m also using Date of Last Update, Show/Hide, and conditional formatting as previously spoken by the wildebeest.)
In practice, and taking my 2022-developed Y2K-unfriendly document numbering system into account, I may store the following files in my client’s Microsoft or Google repository (or Bredemarket’s own):
- BlueWidget2609a-All (all tabs, not distributed to anyone but kept on file)
- BlueWidget2609a-ProductSummary (just the first tab, sent to Bob and Judy only)
- BlueWidget2609a-CandidateFeatures (just the fourth tab, sent to Judy, Chris, and Tina)
What if I’m a REAL project manager and don’t use Excel?
Now I know some project managers tuned me out when I used the E word in the title.
But the same principle applies if you use Microsoft Project, or Microsoft Teams, or Asana, or Slack, or Jira, or InsaneBambi.AI.
(Whoops, InsaneBambi.AI is still embargoed. Forget I mentioned it.)
All of these apps support views, letting you create the equivalents of targeted worksheets so certain stakeholders only see certain things about the project.
Use your favorite app’s view capability to only display information necessary for your stakeholders.
Your stakeholders are your customers. Maintain a customer focus.
But what about you?
How do you curate project views for your stakeholders? Do you send filtered spreadsheets or rely on tool-specific dashboards? Let me know in the comments.
And if you have an identity, biometric, or technology product marketing project that could benefit from Bredemarket’s expertise, let’s talk.
Loss Aversion is NOT “No-risk”
I talk about asking and acting ad nauseam.
There’s a reason.
People don’t act.
Perhaps tiny startups are all too willing to act, to the point of moving fast and breaking things. But executives at more established firms become well versed in loss aversion.
“Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where the emotional impact of a loss is felt more intensely than the joy of an equivalent gain….
“According to the original research conducted by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the pioneers of loss aversion, the torment of a loss can be psychologically twice as powerful as an equivalent gain. This discrepancy often motivates the choices we make, leading us to cling to what we already have rather than try to acquire new objects or opportunities. Simply put, it’s better not to lose $10 than to find $10.”
Once you look at it dispassionately, you realize that loss aversion makes no sense from an economic perspective.
But corporate leaders are loss averse anyway.
Why?
Four reasons for loss aversion
Here are some reasons for loss aversion.
Reason 1, Product unreadiness
Executives may panic because the product on the floor is nowhere near the one in the product marketing materials. The product on the floor is buggy, and that amazing new capability that the marketing slick discusses isn’t even in the code yet.
And I can tell you from personal experience that this isn’t limited to product marketing.
When I was writing and managing proposals for automated fingerprint and biometric identification systems (AFIS and ABIS), the product usually wouldn’t hit the “factory acceptance test” phase until a year after I wrote the proposal.
- Sometimes the agency explicitly asked whether feature 129 was in your code today. If it did, then you had to be honest and say whether it existed, or whether you’d have to add it in a future release in the next year.
- Sometimes the agency didn’t ask, so you took a different approach with your answer.
Same with product marketing. If you are writing the data sheet in September, but you’ll show the product at a trade show next March, then you write the data sheet as if it were already March and the amazing new capability was already in the code.
If everything goes well.
“But John,” you’re saying. “Isn’t it dangerous to write about things that are 6 months or a year in the future?”
Think about it. Even if a prospect sees the data sheet and gets really really excited, the prospect couldn’t buy it that day even if they wanted to.
- First, you’re not selling it. (Well, probably not.)
- Second, even if you were taking pre-orders, the prospect probably won’t buy it that day anyway. It will take months if not years to line up the budget and all the approvals, and the prospect may be forced to go to competitive bidding anyway, which tacks another year on the timeline (at least for complex offerings such as AFIS and ABID).
In summary, some “future present tense” writing probably isn’t going on hurt you. Don’t be scared to tell your prospects where you’re going. At least that’s my view.
Reason 2, Compliance and legal exposure
Now I’m going to contradict what I just said.
Because there are some times when you CANNOT go the future present tense route.
- You can’t say that your product has received a presentation attack detection (PAD) Level 3 conformance certificate if you haven’t received one.
- You can’t say that your algorithm ranks high in NIST FRTE 1:N testing if you haven’t submitted your algorithm to NIST.
- You can’t even say that you’re doing business in the United States when you’re not.
If there is a legal requirement and you claim to meet it, make sure you do.
Reason 3, Positioning ambiguity
I’m old enough to remember Shimmer, the Saturday Night Live “product” that was both a floor wax and a dessert topping.
But for most products you have to decide on positioning and messaging, and there may be known consequences if you get it wrong.
Certainly for the products sold by Bredemarket’s clients, products with critical security, privacy, and legal implications. If you say something stupid such as “Our facial recognition product provides all you need to arrest bad people,” you will be in BIG trouble.
Now I’m not denying that product positioning is critically important.
I’m just saying that it shouldn’t take two years to create your positioning and messaging.
And don’t be afraid to iterate. Get something out there and tweak it later during the next review cycle. (You ARE setting regular review cycles for your positioning and messaging, right?)
Reason 4, Fear of firing
Are you afraid of losing your job? Join the club.
I like the way Google Gemini put it:
“In risk-averse corporate cultures, a failed campaign carries higher personal downside for an executive than the neutral outcome of waiting a few extra weeks.”
But I have learned the hard way that you don’t have to fail to lose your job. You can lose your job for a myriad of reasons, including office politics, a worldwide pandemic, or the need to boost short-term profitability. Or no reason at all; some companies terminate employees and can’t say why.
Pausing a risky go-to-market initiative does NOT guarantee that you will keep your job.
But doesn’t loss aversion reduce risk?
Let’s go back to the beginning of this post. Loss aversion seems so attractive because it prevents you from losing $10.
So it avoids risk, right?
Um, no. Loss aversion is risky.
It introduces the risk of not gaining $10.
Or gaining a lot more than $10, according to this article that was republished on (checks notes) Yahoo! Finance.
“Back in 1998, two individuals, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, who were unknown to the technology company offered to sell their little startup to AltaVista for $1 million so they can resume their studies at Stanford….
“AltaVista turned down the offer to acquire the company. Similarly, Yahoo wanted its users to spend more time on its own platform, contrasting PageRank, which sends a user to the most relevant web site.”
So Page and Brin kept working, along with Eric Schmidt, and their startup Google started doing pretty well.
So much so that in 2002, Yahoo! came calling again.
“Yahoo had another opportunity to acquire Google. In 2002, Yahoo’s CEO at the time, Terry Semel, engaged in negotiations to acquire Google, which lasted several months.
“The outcome of the negotiation was Semel balking at Google’s price tag of $5 billion.”
But Yahoo! didn’t come away empty-handed. In 2003, it acquired the company that had acquired AltaVista.
But Google, um, continued to do well on its own.
But Yahoo! and AltaVista avoided that huge risk.
Oh, and AltaVista no longer exists, and Yahoo! isn’t going to buy Google any time soon.
So what?
Now I will not guarantee that using Bredemarket’s services will make you Google-level money.
But I can help you accelerate your content, proposals, and analysis to help you act before your competitors do.
Click below to learn more about how Bredemarket can help biometric firms (and other identity and technology firms).
https://bredemarket.com/2026/09/01/biometric-product-marketing-expert-2609b/
Ask before the courage fails.
Yoti is the Latest Company to Pull Out of Spain
Yoti is leaving Spain.
In the last decade, Google pulled Google Noticias (Google News) out of Spain for eight years because of a dispute with the Spanish government.
Yoti is not quite as big as Google, but Yoti is leaving Spain also.
“Yoti is disappointed to announce that from 10th September, we will be removing the Yoti ID app from the Apple and Android app stores in Spain. Our decision has come about in light of our ongoing appeal through the Audiencia Nacional (Spanish High Court) against the decision of the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD).”
Why? Because the AEPD insisted that Yoti provide a non-biometric alternative to access its own app. Yoti is fine with non-biometric alternatives to Yoti itself, but it won’t compromise on how its own app is accessed.
“However, to align with our understanding of the AEPD’s decision we would have to offer a non-biometric alternative, like a PIN, password, or SMS or email OTP. None of these authentication alternatives offer the same strong protection as biometric authentication. They can be easily shared, stolen or compromised….
“Biometric authentication is the cornerstone of the protections we offer to every Yoti ID app user globally. Without it, we would be unable to provide the same level of assurance to our Digital ID users or to the businesses and organisations that depend on Yoti to verify identities and ages accurately and securely. Maintaining that standard of protection is fundamental to who we are.”
So Yoti is bidding good-bye to Spain.
Practical Uses of Generative AI
Using Google Gemini for important stuff, like whether the Marie rain will affect tonight’s baseball game.
The chance of tonight’s Dodgers game being delayed or postponed due to rain is very low.
Game Time: 7:10 PM PDT vs. Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium.
Rain Chance During Game Hours: While daytime showers affected the area, precipitation chances drop significantly by evening. During game time (7:00 PM – 10:00 PM), the chance of rain drops to around 0% – 1% according to WeatherMLB and 25% or lower in broader local hourly models from Google Weather
.
Uninspirational Slop Quote, Saturday, September 5, 2026
By Gemini as explained here.
“Fail to plan, and you plan to fail—so map out a market expansion strategy, launch a targeted product marketing campaign, and require both iris scans and gait analysis just to make sure you’re the one failing.”