Giving your passwords the finger: a review of fingerprint scanners
 

The fingerprint scanners in my roundup are intended to simplify your life by eliminating the need to remember a bunch of passwords or write them down on a piece of paper that could be viewed by a passerby in your office place or home. Each time you want to log into Windows, for example, you simply need to place your finger on the fingerprint readers, and you would have access. If the reader supports your commonly-used applications, then you simply need to log into your application account using the fingerprint reader's menu once, and in the future you'll only need your prints. The readers are not more secure than your 12-character password; in fact, all of the scanners give you the option to log in with a password instead of a fingerprint. They're simply for keeping all of your passwords in one place—on your fingertip.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...t-scanners.ars