Lenovo To Show Face-Recognising Laptop

It may sound like the stuff of James Bond films, but face recognition is now being proposed as a way to give users a more secure way to log on to their laptops.

Chinese computer maker Lenovo is preparing to showcase its IdeaPad notebook, which is the first PC to feature Lenovo’s VeriFace face recognition software. The technology – which allows the user to log onto their computer just by sitting in front of it, using their face as their password – will be shown at Lenovo’s forthcoming Innovation Tour in London on 22 June, an event aimed at press and partners.

Facial features matched to photos

Lenovo’s VeriFace combines the Windows log-in and file encryption to password-protect individual files. It identifies users by matching unique features of their faces to photographs taken by the 1.3-megapixel webcam built into the laptop.

When Windows users start up their PCs, a camera window pops up in the login frame. The user then just has to adjust their position so their face appears in the window, and VeriFace logs them in automatically.

Unauthorised users may not get onto the system, but VeriFace does give them a consolation prize: the chance to leave a video message for the real computer user.

The software is a registered trademark of Lenovo, and currently only works on Windows XP Home and Professional, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

A few years ago Lenovo was one of the first laptop makers to fit fingerprint readers, and included finger-activated hard-drive encryption in its ThinkPad notebooks. This allowed people to use their fingerprint to log on to a computer, rather than typing their passwords each time.

HP “racist” software

Lenovo may find itself sailing into dangerous water, however, as rival laptop maker Hewlett-Packard found last year. HP shipped facial recognition in some of its PCs, but the software was branded as “racist” when a YouTube video surfaced showing the software and camera failing to recognise an African-American man. In the video, the software seemed to recognise the white woman featured in the video but not her black co-worker.

“I’m going on record and I’m saying it: Hewlett-Packard computers are racist,” the black man Desi said in the YouTube video, although he appeared to be joking and smiling through most of the impromptu demonstration.

HP was quick to counteract the accuation, attributing the problem to insufficient foreground lighting. “Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers, who are ethnically diverse and live and work around the world,” said an HP spokesperson at the time.