It seems to be a camera so that they may watch the every move of your legs. It is especially bad for me, since my legs are so hairy. The shame, the horrible shame. :(

How are you using your laptop that it would be pointing at your legs?... 0_o

Hence the source of my great shame!!!!

the mystery is revealed :)

EDIT
Screw it. My funny picture really doesn't want to be posted! :P

No hands and thus uses his feet like hands instead?

Hmmm... Just got a funny idea... A password input device that's a rectal thermometer.... :)

Could be a socket for a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(Space_Odyssey)#Minilith]minilith[/url].

how many of those would get stuck?!

I used to have one of those at my store and was annoying always having to log into the system every time to do a transaction and having it not read your finger like 10 times was a major piss off.

They still don't exist. ;)
I once had a Dell with one. Never, ever worked. In the end, I concluded that they put it on to make the laptop seem to be cutting edge, without actually enabling it.
Like the OP said, a mysterious rectangle to poked and prodded, in moments of spare cycle activity. :)

That sounds like something Dell would do.

I have that kind of fingerprint scanner on my current HP work laptop, and also the earlier one (Lenovo) I had before this one. I guess they are more prevalent on business laptops, as my gaming laptop back at home does not have such I think.

Anyway, I haven't really used that fingerprint thingie because my workmates who did, kept complaining that it quite often fails to log them in. So in the end they stopped using the thing and kept logging in with their password like normal people do.

Plus, I want to remember my password (especially since we have to change it every few months), and what better way to do that but to having to write it every time you log in.

I tell you, it's aliens. Those put it there....
On a more serious note, I would love it if every laptop had one. I tried using built-in facial recognition but it's too slow for my taste.

They have to rescan my fingerprint every single time I go to use my Six Flags season pass. The scanners never recognize it. It's not just there, either. I had to be fingerprinted to be able to transport my neighbor's foster child in my car, and it took the fingerprint lady about eight tries on each finger to get the machine to take a viable scan (and she inked my fingers first)!

I see thanks! I wonder though how reliable it is, for example if while moving if you move your finger a little to the side will it get it correctly and how fast should one move it in order to be scanned correctly?