Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Synaptics’ new turnkey USB solution brings biometrics to older laptops

Jonathan Keane
By

Fingerprint (shutterstock/ italianestro)
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Synaptics, which develops touch-based interfaces for hardware manufacturers, today unveiled its turnkey USB fingerprint solution for third-party manufacturers at the Computex conference in Taiwan.

The turnkey solution allows OEMs and others to integrate fingerprint verification technology into a USB device for use with computers that do not already have a biometric sensor built in. It uses Synaptics’ own FIDO-certified Natural ID fingerprint technology, which is compatible with Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport.

Recommended Videos

There is an increased demand for more secure password alternatives and biometrics like fingerprints may provide that alternative, especially with the growth of online payments that need quick and easy verification.

Related

However not all devices like laptops have integrated biometrics sensors. This presents an issue as laptop and notebook life cycles tend to be much longer than smartphones, leaving users lacking in some of the latest features. Synaptics believes its new turnkey solution can bridge that gap between old and new laptops.

Synaptics does not appear to be developing the USB devices itself. Rather it will provide the fingerprinting technology that runs the biometric features and will license the solution to USB manufacturers. The company is demoing the technology in action with a USB dongle this week at Computex and expects it to be ready for mass production at the end of 2016.

The turnkey solution will be provided at low cost to equipment manufacturers, according to Godfrey Cheng, vice president of marketing at the Human Interface Systems Division (HISD) at Synaptics, and can be bundled or sold separately.

“Our new USB fingerprint reader expands our lineup of PC peripherals,” Cheng said in a related statement, “enabling our customers to offer consumers myriad options for adding fingerprint sensing to existing notebook and desktop PCs.”

Biometric reader services appear to be growing in popularity. In a recent survey, 52 percent of respondents said they would rather use alternative authentication methods like biometrics for logging in rather than a traditional password.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jonathan Keane
Jonathan Keane
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jonathan is a freelance technology journalist living in Dublin, Ireland. He's previously written for publications and sites…
How to easily connect any laptop to a TV
An image-editor app being used to edit photos on a laptop.

If you’re using a laptop on a daily basis, you’ll know how tiring it can get to stare at a 13-inch screen for hours on end. This is why it’s great that most modern PCs can be connected to a TV. Not only does this give you a bigger display to work with, but you’ll still be able to use your laptop as you normally would. So no saying goodbye to those handy trackpad gestures!

Read more
The Asus ROG Ally just got a game-changing update
Asus ROG Ally handhelds side by side.

Asus' ROG Ally is one of the best handheld gaming PCs you can buy, and now it's getting even better. Asus is updating the handheld with AMD's Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF). This is a driver-level feature that adds frame generation to the majority of DirectX 11 and 12 games, which should vastly improve performance.

We've seen AFMF in action on AMD graphics cards previously. The feature launched late last year for desktop and mobile AMD graphics cards, but the ROG Ally oddly didn't support the feature. Asus' handheld uses the Ryzen Z1 chipset, which includes both an AMD processor and graphics card, but it uses its own specialized driver. Because of that, it didn't receive AFMF support right away.

Read more
How to delete a Discord server on desktop and mobile
Memrise bot in the Discord app directory.

Have you had enough of Discord for a while? We get it. It can be a little exhausting to say the least, especially if you’re running a jam-packed server, filled with multimedia and messages. Fortunately, if you’re in the mood to take a break, it’s not too hard to delete your Discord server.

Read more