Yesterday, I told you I’d let you know about a device that I’m hoping all touchpads will soon offer as standard equipment.

That would be the Synaptics SecurePad, a hardware module that integrates the Synaptics TouchPad with the Validity fingerprint sensor into the design of your notebook computer. No, you won’t find this anywhere in PriceGrabber, because it’s something the vendors that make your laptop will need to design their machines around.

According to Synaptics, here’s how it works:

“SecurePad uses a high frequency Pulsed RF technology that looks beyond the skin surface, past dirt and other contaminates and images the subsurface live layer to capture a fingerprint. By sending radio waves through the finger, and measuring how the signal is changed as it travels to the sensing array, SecurePad synthesizes an image of the fingerprint structure. SecurePad works in conjunction with leading software solutions, which provides a simple way for people to use their fingerprint to secure their hardware and software assets, as well as conveniently provide password replacement.”

The company doesn’t say how much it hurts when those little radio waves pierce the skin surface to get to that subsurface live layer.

At any rate, imagine a day when you no longer have to remember a single login name or password. (I dedicate fully a fifth of my current brain mass to that activity.)

Of course, nothing’s as easy as you think it will be. Once the hardware vendors have bought into the idea of biometrics, the application vendors — including online services — will need to build in the capability to recognize this form of security. And I suppose the most nefarious among us could steal thumbs, like that Tom Cruise character did in Minority Report a few years back.

But other than that, this one’s brilliant. I give it a thumb’s up — I mean, thumb’s down.