Hitachi first to offer laptop with vein recognition

We've already heard of Hitachi putting vein-recognition technology in handles, so the next logical step is obviously (?) laptops. The company announced the "FLORA Se210," a Windows XP Embedded system with no hard drive (for security purposes, we take it), 600MHz Celeron processor, 256MB of RAM, and otherwise normal specifications. Set at around $1,625, the system will launch on December 1st and is apparently the first notebook in the world to feature vein-recognition technology, which is touted as being both faster and harder to falsify versus traditional fingerprint recognition. LEDs shine into your finger, and depending on how the light is diffused by the veins in your finger, a certain pattern will be returned to the sensor. If that pattern doesn't match what is stored on the "KeyMobile" USB key included with the system, you'll be unable to access its data. Since the machine has no hard drive, Hitachi is marketing it as a enterprise-level terminal.