Microsoft Officially Launches Biometric Keyboard

Microsoft has officially launched its biometric keyboard, along with a companion mouse device.

(image via Windows Blogs)

The company’s Modern Keyboard was first unveiled in June, and is the first such device in the world to feature a fingerprint sensor embedded in one of its keys. That sensor comes by way of Fingerprint Cards, a Swedish company that has long dominated the mobile fingerprint sensor market and has lately been expanding into the PC domain.

The embedded fingerprint sensor allows for fast and secure user authentication via Windows Hello, the biometric authentication platform that comes built into the Windows 10 operating system. In its official announcement of the device’s launch, Microsoft asserts that this kind of biometric authentication can allow users to log in to compatible apps in under two seconds, which is three times faster than the average password input.

The keyboard arrives at an MSRP of $129.99, along with the companion Microsoft Modern Mouse – both devices are wireless – at an MSRP of $49.99.