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Barely two weeks ago IBM announced its ThinkPad T42 with a fingerprint reader and data encryption. Now Samsung says its laptop range will incorporate what it is calling a Trusted Platform Module, using public/private key encryption infrastructures and fingerprint authentication.

Not only will the security technologies only ensure that only valid users can access the data on the laptops,

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but this also extends to communications with corporate servers and networks.

'Public key encryption has been used within fixed computing for a number of years and has proved an excellent method of protecting data,' said Peter Lunn, Notebook Product Manager, Samsung Electronics UK. 'The notebook market is experiencing incredible growth and as more companies convert to mobile PCs the need for security has also grown. Through the use of public key security, encryption and fingerprint biotechnology Samsung is producing some of the most secure notebooks on the market.'

Certainly one of the reasons for migration en-masse to fingerprint technologies is that adding such biometric capabilities has become cheap enough not to add a premium to the price, and small enough to integrate without adding significantly to size and weight. Until now, the technology has only been available in six of Samsung's laptops, but all of next year's X Series models will include this.