More than 770 million biometric authentication applications will be downloaded per annum by 2019, up from just 6 million this year, dramatically reducing dependence on alphanumeric passwords in the mobile phone market. According to Juniper Research, fingerprint authentication will account for the overwhelming majority of such apps in the medium term, driven by increasing deployment of fingerprint scanners within mid-range smartphones. However, other forms of biometric identification that do not require embedded hardware are also emerging, such as Descartes Biometrics' ERGO ear print biometric authentication app and Nuance's voice authentication service. Release