Hitachi has developed a steering wheel with a tiny device that reads the driver’s finger veins. This lets the driver use his/her fingers as switches for the engine, car stereo, and navigation system.

"If I place my index finger on this reader, it recognises it’s me. If I put the finger again, it starts the engine," Masahide Hayashi of Hitachi’s sensor design department explained at the Tokyo Motor Show near the capital.

No word on when we might see this in cars, but Hitachi said it hopes to launch it within three or four years.

Yes, you read that correctly – a mouse that reads veins, not fingerprints or irises or some other body part.

This USB mouse from Fujitsu uses their PalmSecure scanner plus some Windows compatible software to authenticate you (or your arm) by your veins.