With fingerprint scanners now more common on smartphones than ever, it only makes sense that they get popularized on the platform they are needed most: computers. The latest solution arrives from touchpad/security company Synaptics, which is not only the most convenient but also the simplest.
Synaptics, the company with enormous prowess in biometric and touch devices has embedded a fingerprint scanner into a USB flash drive that can work with arguably every computer out there. Whether there will be support for Type-C controllers is not known as of yet.
Setting up the device is highly simple. You just plug it into a USB port, follow a few procedures to get it to recognize your fingerprints and such and you’re ready to go. You can just leave it in the port for further sign-ins. That can be an issue, especially in laptops with limited ports.
The target audience for the thumb drive seems to be enterprise for now but we can’t see how products such as these cannot be ready for primetime yet. The device is certified by FIDO (Fast Identity Online).
With almost all upper-end and increasing number of mid-range smartphones now coming with fingerprint scanners, it is about time that desktops and laptops also catch up with the security innovations of the handheld devices. With added security features such as Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport now becoming an integral part of Windows itself, we could be seeing a ballooning of security measures going forward.
The dongle will be available in early 2017, entering mass-production in Q4 of this year.
