Passwords are such a pain. They’re so essential to modern life, but no-one likes using them, or remembering them, or inventing new ones.
Biometrics company Hoyos says it has the solution, with a little hand-held gadget called EyeLock.
Hold it in front of your face, and it scans and recognises the unique patterns in your iris. Once it knows that you really are you, it automatically logs you into all the stuff on your computer that you’d normally use a password for. It even works for glasses-wearers.
The device should go on sale for $99, although it’s not clear exactly when.
True story: back in the mid 1990s, when I was a humble tech journalist for a London news agency, I was invited to try out an eye-recognition ATM.
The process was unwieldy. First I had to sit in front of a scanner and have my eye scanned. Then the saved data had to be transferred to the ATM. Then I stood in front of it, looked into its baleful HAL-like face, and it recognised me.
Oh, it did voice recognition too. I said: “I’d like fifty pounds please.”
It spat out five blank pieces of paper. It was only a demo after all.
This was 1998 or 1999. It was going to be the future. We were all going to be rid of the curse of plastic cards forever.
Here’s hoping EyeLock has a better chance of making that happen.
(Via PC Mag).