We are all familiar with those ATM blues. After keying in the pin number, no cash is forthcoming, the card ejected with an electronic message that the numbers are unacceptable. You have inputted an incorrect sequence, or used the wrong pin number, and the bleeping machine, lacking cogitative powers, glares balefully, poised to swallow the plastic at any further transgression. Your honesty and identity is somehow in question. Iris can change all that. Not the friendly bank teller at your local branch but the "IrisIdent", the latest futuristic technological wonder in ATM machines. The IrisIdent, soon to be street tested in Britain, will dispense cash in the blink of an eye, the machine confirming identity by scanning the iris.

The eye is as good as a fingerprint for identification purposes, each iris having 250 distinct features. The scan, which takes about two seconds, uses ordinary, but concealed, video cameras. Inserting the card triggers two cameras, the first captures the face, pinpointing eye position, the second zooms in for close-up of the iris. The system, which claims to be foolproof, maps the whorls of the iris, creating a point-by-point code which it compares with your eye structure on its database. In test conditions it has made only one mistake in more than 130,000 transactions. Employed entertainingly in the Bond film, Never Say Never Again, the ATM of the future can never say never again to your cash needs, overdraft permitting.