Disappointing Fingerprint Reader
I am really disappointed about Microsoft. At least in terms of hardware, my experiences with Microsoft products were very positive. Until now.
Today I got myself the MS Optical Desktop with Fingerprint Reader which is a mouse / keyboard combo with integrated Fingerprint Reader Technology. I tried it and first it seemed like a cool thing, I thought no more remembering of hundreds of passwords (ok, hundreds is a bit exaggerated). But then I wanted to try out the fingerprint reader with a website login. The dialog appeared to save the password but then I couldn’t use it. After some research on Google I had to learn that Firefox (remember the best browser in the world 
) is not supported. Neither is any other browser (that is not IE6). Apparently the models from digitalPersona (on which the MS reader is based on) do support Firefox. I really don’t know what MS is trying to achieve in blocking about 35% of the users. I really doubt that anyone will change his browser in order to use the Fingerprint Reader. I rather think most people will do it like me and take the thing back to the store right the next day.
Update:
I called the MS hotline this morning and they said that there are no plans for Firefox integration. So the desktop went back to the store this afternoon. So much for that…
