We just love it. No one wants to go back.

Palm scanners get thumbs up in schools, hospitals (USA Today)

Palm-scanning technology is popping up nationwide as a bona fide biometric tracker of identities, and it appears poised to make the jump from schools and hospitals to other sectors of the economy including ATM usage and retail. It also has applications as a secure identifier for cloud computing.

Here's how it works: Using the same near-infrared technology that comes in a TV remote control or Nintendo Wii video game, the device takes a super high-resolution infrared photograph of the vein pattern just below a person's skin. That image, between 1.5 and 2.5 square inches, is recorded and digitized.

It's not hard to see why palm vein scanners are attractive in many applications. Users don't have to touch anything, they're fast, and the biometric is more difficult than some others to spoof.