Skip to navigation

PCPro-Computing in the Real World Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk

Register to receive our regular email newsletter at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/registration.

The newsletter contains links to our latest PC news, product reviews, features and how-to guides, plus special offers and competitions.

Fujitsu PalmSecure in Mice

Verdict

The PalmSecure technology is fascinating, but its integration here leaves much to be desired.

Review Date: 3 Feb 2009

Price when reviewed: £260 (£299 inc VAT)

Buy it now for: £189.99

Overall Rating
2 stars out of 6

Fingerprint scanners are common on laptops, particularly in the business sector, but PC users have traditionally been required to buy a separate USB biometric device to achieve the same level of security. Fujitsu's PalmSecure takes a different approach: it's a USB mouse with a biometric scanner built in.

It doesn't work with fingerprints, though. As the name suggests it works by scanning your palm, or more specifically, the deoxidised haemoglobin in the veins running beneath the surface of the skin on your palm. This haemoglobin absorbs infra-red light from the scanner, producing an image with the unique vein pattern clearly visible.

Scanning is also contactless. This is primarily so the scanners can be used hygienically in medical institutions; elsewhere, the only benefit is that it keeps the scanner's surface clean of smudges. To register a palm you use the supplied wrist rest to position your hand at the perfect scanning height, and from then on you can have it read your palm by merely hovering a hand a couple of inches above the scanner.

And the scanner works very well. After a bit of practice to learn the best hand position we were logging into Windows in an instant. Fujitsu says it works to a false acceptance rate of less than 0.00007%, and all sorts of applications for the technology are detailed on the website.

This mouse, though, is for single users and it's here that the flaws in the bundled OmniPass control software become evident. For a start it relies on the use of multiple Windows accounts for multiple palm readings; if two people use the same PC without their own individual accounts, only the first will be able to use the PalmSecure.

And then there's the implementation of password saving, likely to be the most commonly used feature once you're logged in. In theory, you should be able to enter a website's login details, choose OmniPass's Remember Password option, then tell it which box is the login box. But we didn't find a single website that worked successfully in any of the main browsers.

Instead, we had to run the unwieldy Password Wizard every time we visited a new site. This requires you to enter your username then drag an icon to the relevant entry field, then repeat for your password, then show it where the submit button is.

Only then did the automatic authentication work, and it does so by filling in the login fields, character-by-character, in front of your eyes, which makes it not a great deal quicker than simply typing in the username and password yourself.

The PalmSecure mouse can also be used to encrypt any files on your PC, but as with all authentications the fact that you can circumvent the palm security by using a master password means it's only as secure as the password you choose.

There is an option to switch off the use of passwords completely, so the PalmSecure is used exclusively to log in, unlock encrypted files and access stored passwords, but the risk of losing or breaking the device makes us very wary of that.

The scanner technology on its own - on a hospital door, for example - would make a great contactless security device for those institutions that require it, but integrating it into a mouse makes it more of a password-saving convenience than a genuine security tool.

Add the fact that you're also then tied to an unattractive and weighty wired mouse - a dear one at that - and the Fujitsu PalmSecure mouse holds little appeal over any other USB fingerprint reader.

Author: David Bayon

Be the first to comment this article

You need to Login or Register to comment.

(optional)

Latest Prices for PalmSecure

Seller Price Buy Now Seller Rating
Amazon Marketplace UK £189.99 Shop 5 starts out of 5
2 reviews

advertisement

Most Commented Reviews
Latest News Stories Subscribe to our RSS Feeds
Latest Blog Posts Subscribe to our RSS Feeds
Latest Features
Latest Real World Computing

advertisement

Sponsored Links
 
SEARCH
SIGN UP

Your email:

Your password:

remember me

advertisement


Hitwise Top 10 Website 2008