Reuters reports that Apple is going to buy fingerprint sensor maker AuthenTec for a sum of $356 million. This acquisition will help Apple in making iPhone the center of emerging mobile payments market, the report suggests. Though it is unclear how Apple is going to use this new company’s tech in it’s future products, along with adding AuthenTec’s technology to iOS devices, it is also likely that Apple will use AuthenTec’s technology to add fingerprint recognition feature to Macs, or do something entirely unguessable at this point of time. Apple is paying $8 per share and 58 percent premium for this company. AuthenTec went public in 2007 and has licensed it’s technology to big companies including Samsung, HP, and Dell. It has an annual revenue of $70 million.
