Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Luxand Blink now lets you use your face to log in to 64-bit Windows 7, too

Luxand Blink now lets you use your face to log in to 64-bit Windows 7, too

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows

luxandblink

Luxand Blink's claim to fame is its ability to log you onto Windows using face recognition with no password required. It's one of the only free applications that does this, and the concept sounds quite neat (at least on paper).

While I covered it before, I was unable to test Blink at the time because it simply didn't work on my 64-bit Windows 7 installation. Luxand has recently released a 64-bit version, though, so I grabbed it about a week ago and have been using it since. I'm back with the results now, and in a word, it's impressive!

Blink took about one minute to set up and register my face; the instructions tell you to "look at the monitor," but my webcam isn't on the monitor (I'm using a PC). I just stared right into my webcam and turned my face slowly left and right for about 30 seconds, and that was it.

When I next logged on, a little "viewport" appeared above the regular user button on my monitor. Then, when I stared into the webcam, Luxand recognized me in about five seconds and logged me on.

As I said, I've been using it for about a week now, and it's a fun little app. It's not faster than typing your password (unless you have a super-long password), but it's definitely easier, and when I get up in the morning, all bleary-eyed, and plop myself in front of the computer, "easier" counts.

One caveat: I would not be surprised to learn that Luxand can be easily fooled with a good-quality print of your mug (this is the case with most face recognition software, I believe). So, you might want to think twice before using it for any of those top-secret, military-grade machines that you've got running in the basement.

[Thanks, adya.22.13!]

Luxand Blink now lets you use your face to log in to 64-bit Windows 7, too originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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