Facial recognition is all the rage amongst the security industry, but what if it could make your life easier – say, by automatically logging you in to your Windows system?
That’s the principle behind the free Luxand Blink application – profiled over on DownloadSquad – developed by a provider of facial recognition software to demonstrate their technology. The idea is simple: install the software onto your Windows Vista or Windows 7 system – sadly, the application only supports 32-bit versions of Windows for now, with the ever-growing number of 64-bit users left out in the cold – and hook up a common or garden webcam.
The next time you come to log in to Windows, you’ll see a preview of the view from the webcam with a target: simply place your face in the center of the target and if you’re one of the registered users Blink will recognize your face and automatically log you in.
Luxand claims that the facial recognition algorithms used in Blink will work “day or night” and are unaffected by “varying lighting conditions [...] whether window or artificial lighting is being used.“ The company also claims that “advanced biometric identification algorithms used in Blink help it cope with changes of your person appearance,” and will continue to recognize you even if you “grow or shave off [your] beard or mustache, use makeup or dye your hair, [or] wear or remove glasses or contact lenses.”
The software doesn’t have to replace traditional passwords as a method of secure authentication, as it can be configured to still request the password even as it automatically selects the correct username. The software can even be used to enhance existing security, as it will take a snapshot via the webcam for every successful login – making it easy to see if someone knows your password and is authenticating as you without your permission.
The idea of using facial recognition to make logging in to your PC easier isn’t new, but Luxand certainly seem to have hit the sweet spot with this latest release: acting as an advert for its paid-for facial recognition software development kit, the company has decided to offer Blink as a free download, no strings attached. While it might not be the most useful security utility out there, it is one of the most impressive – and could be useful for showing off to your Mac-using friends, if nothing else.
However, with an increasing number of manufacturers choosing to pre-load a 64-bit version of Windows onto their hardware – in order to allow access to a full 4GB or more of RAM, which would otherwise go to waste in a 32-bit version thanks to memory space addressing limitations – Luxand really needs to start work on a 64-bit compatible build if it wants to reach the widest audience possible with its application.
