Slim USB dongles to add fingerprint authentication to PCs

Fingerprint scanners are becoming a common security hardware feature and have become one of the easiest way to secure a device. Even Microsoft has started supporting them through its Windows Hello authentication feature. But what if you have a PC that doesn’t offer such mechanism? Synaptics Incorporated has announced a new ultra-small form factor USB module that can add secure fingerprint authentication to any notebook PC. Synaptics says that this USB dongle dubbed as ‘Natural ID’, will help OEMs, ODMs and private companies to offer their customers a simple and inexpensive fingerprint alternative for PCs that don’t come built-in with such feature. The dongle comes with a fingerprint module and is small enough to remain to always stay on your laptop, but of course that means sacrificing a USB port. It has a simple user enrolment procedure though and by a single touch of a finger users can access their PC and make full use of Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport. “The rapid growth of online payments combined with the critical need for protecting access to PC data for businesses and consumers alike is driving the need for high performance biometric authentication. Our new USB fingerprint reader expands our line-up of PC peripherals, enabling our customers to offer consumers myriad options for adding fingerprint sensing to existing notebook and desktop PCs. This low cost turnkey solution can easily be bundled or sold separately”, said Godfrey Cheng, vice president of marketing, Human Interface Systems Division (HISD) Synaptics. Expect Synaptics’ new turnkey USB dongle with fingerprint scanner to demo in Q3 this year and go into mass production by Q4 2016.