Fujitsu will replace passwords and keycards with palm scanning for 80K employees in Japan:
On Thursday, Fujitsu announced that it would replace employee passwords and smartcards with a new authentication measure: Their palm veins. The company will deploy its palm vein authentication technology to about 80,000 employees in Japan this year, allowing them to access their virtual desktops with a wave of their hand.
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Fujitsu also wants to replace the smartcard-based authentication installed at the entrances to two offices in Japan with the palm vein authentication. The company will trial this for 5,200 employees working at those locations over the next year, it said in a press release.
(Via Security on TechRepublic)
The article is not much more than a press release.
I would love to see their success criteria, the metrics, ROI calculus, and how they continue to refine their capabilities. The article talks about "efficiency" and getting rid of "the hassle of entering a password", both convenience use cases, but nothing really about security.
Biometrics, in many implementations, combine identity and authentication into one - think about the fingerprint sensor on a smartphone.
UPDATE: This article from SecurityWeek lists the pros & cons of biometrics.