Bill Gates may be one of the smartest guys in the country, but even

he’s annoyed at having to remember a lot of personal passwords for

activities like withdrawing money and going online. He also thinks

they’re secure. At last week’s Comdex computer convention in Las 【M1】__________

Vegas, the Microsoft CEO railed the password as a “weak link”. One of 【M2】__________

his proposed solutions are biometrics, the measuring of unique 【M3】__________

characteristics like the fingerprint and the iris of the eye for the

purpose of verifying identification. 【M4】__________

That delighted about the dozen or so companies that brought biometric 【M5】__________

technology to Comdex. Mostly start-ups, they came to Vegas shopping

schemes to identify you in your hands, your eyes, your voice, even the 【M6】__________

way you type. “We want to see a biometrics row in every CompUSA,

right next to joysticks and printers,” says Kevin Corson of True Touch,

a maker of software that works with various forms of the technology.

Comdex attendants eagerly lined on at the counter of IriScan, a 【M7】_________

firm based in Marlton, N. J. , to hold a scanner—it looked a bit like a

hair dryer—about three inches from their eyes. The device works by

taking a video image of the iris, breaking the image into circular

frameworks and analyzed the unique patterns within each area. The 【M8】_________

company says there’s only a l-in-1078 chances that two people’s irises 【M9】_________

will match in its system.

A company called Identicator, in San Bruno, Calif. , is aiming a

little lower—at your forefingers. The company licenses its scanners to

Compaq and other companies, which combine them with keyboards and

mouses or sell them as $ 100 stand-alone units that you can put into your 【M10】_________

computer.

【M9】