To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://hardware.silicon.com/storage/0,39024649,39125201,00.htm

USB sticks get fingerprinted
Aren't biometrics fun?

By Declan McCullagh

Published: Friday 22 October 2004

A new memory stick on sale next week turns fingerprints into passwords. Lexar Media's JumpDrive TouchGuard uses a sensor that reads the miniscule ridges on a finger, and unlocks the encrypted data on the USB memory stick if there's a match.

"It's going to be in Best Buy [one of the largest chains of US consumer electronics shops] stores starting Monday," Christopher Crump, a project manager at Cogent Systems, said Thursday. Cogent wrote the software. Fujitsu makes the finger-scanning chip for the TouchGuard stick, which was demonstrated at a technology conference this week. Sony already sells a similar product called Micro Vault.