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Windows only: Like the future? Freeware application BananaScreen adds face recognition login to your webcam-enabled Windows computer. To use, just install BananaScreen and create a face model. Then set up BananaScreen to lock after a predefined amount of inactivity (or hit Alt-L to lock at any time). Once locked, BananaScreen will keep an eye on faces coming and going in front of the camera. When it matches yours, it immediately unlocks your computer. Cool, right?
Well... yes, but not entirely foolproof. It's still a beta app, and I wouldn't trust it as a truly secure solution at this point. I tried taking a picture of myself and then using the picture to log in (see screenshot), which didn't fool BananaScreen, but a less hastily thrown together picture might work fine (it did recognize that the picture was of a face). That probably means that someone would have to make a concerted effort to break into your computer, taking pictures of you on the sly, or maybe just grabbing the family portrait. If you're not really worried about that, this is a very fun login tool. In all of my tests it recognized my face very quickly and accurately, but if your facial login doesn't work for some reason, you can still use your regular password.
Granted, if movies have taught us anything it's that security measures like face recognition, retinal scans, and handprint scans can still be easily circumvented once you've been killed and the appropriate body part has been removed, but at that point—fine, if the RIAA is that desperate to see what I've been BitTorrenting, they can knock themselves out.
BananaScreen is free to download, currently Windows only (though the site claims a Mac version will be available soon). In the meantime, Mac users might want to try locking their computer when they walk away with their Bluetooth phone.
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