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HARDWARE
The Gist: Your One-touch Laptop Password
$3,499
Acer's TravelMate 739TLV is the sort of laptop you'd expect to see in the hands of a supersleuthing Charlie's Angel: It requires a fingerprint ID to log in. You set up the Veridicom fingerprint reader at the base of the computer's keyboard, and from then on, it's locked until you present your digit of choice.
Companies like Veridicom have been trying to bring biometrics to mainstream computing for more than 20 years. They've had an uneasy time, in part because of the association between fingerprinting and criminality, and in part because the technology has rarely been as good as its boosters claimed. Veridicom's technology overcomes many past complaints. It scans a fingerprint in less than a second, it's extraordinarily accurate - even when my finger was covered with a layer of spit - and it's integrated well with Windows 2000, making it easy to use. This portable is power-packed too, with a huge 15-inch screen, built-in DVD drive, 850-MHz Pentium III processor, and 3-D sound.
The TravelMate's big drawback is corny execution. When you present a fingerprint, a message pops up: "Fingerprint security access required beyond this point." Then there's a sound bite: "Beep! Beep! Beep! Fingerprint identification required!" Once your print is read, the speakers announce: "Identity confirmed. Access granted." The process is cute the first time, but embarrassing in a crowded office, and it adds 12 seconds to bootup. What's worse, there's no way to turn it off. Biometrics may be the passwords of the future, but this login sequence belongs on a movie set, not your desktop.
Acer: www.acer.com.
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