Palm Security| PC| Fujitsu| New Technologies

Biometric security is both easy to use and hard to defeat, so its no surprise that finger scanners are popping up on notebooks and as PC peripherals. But once you have swiped them, anyone can use the computer.

Fujitsu has taken the biometric protection concept one step further making it continuous. Its done so with its PalmSecure mouse, which has an infrared scanner that reads the pattern of the veins in your palm as you hold the mouse, all without adding more desktop clutter or replacing your biometric-less laptop.

Fujitsu has had its PalmSecure technology available for a while, but only in a version that required an authentication server. That tended to limit its users to enterprises such as hospitals, where users might work on multiple PCs during the day.

PalmSecure has not yet begun selling the PC login kit, but keep in mind that the PalmSecure works only on Windows XP and Vista. If you want to have managed multi-user authentication across an enterprise’s PCs, you’ll need the authentication server edition.

How Does It Work?

The Palm is first illuminated by an infrared light. The veins just beneath the skin of the palm then emits a black reflection, giving a picture of the veins in the palm.
Using a proprietary Fujitsu algorithm, the pattern is then extracted from this picture and is checked against patterns stored in the system. If there is a match, the person’s identity is confirmed.