A consortium of tech companies adopted a new standard in December intended to usher in a more secure future without the hassle of passwords. On Friday, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will incorporate those specifications, enabling new biometric identification features like fingerprints and eye-scans. Good job, Microsoft.
This means the folks designing useful things like fingerprint readers and iris scanners can now rest assured that their technology will work with the latest version of the most popular desktop operating system. That’s pretty big.
The standard in question is the next version of the Fast Identification Online (FIDO) specification, designed “to make authentication simpler and stronger for all.” But of course FIDO is only as useful as it is prevalent, and inclusion on Windows 10 is a major step towards ubiquity. We might not be done with passwords quite yet, but we’re making progress. [Microsoft via The Verge]
