The idea is that you simply drop into the system a cotton swab with a person's saliva, for example, and the "Rapid DNA" machine spits out the type of DNA data that's needed to pin down identity. Now that such equipment exists, the FBI is pushing to get it into the hands of law enforcement agencies as soon as possible. [Also see: ""]

"DNA has emerged as the gold standard in forensics analysis," Steven Martinez, executive assistant director of the science and technology branch at the FBI, said in his keynote address to attendees of the Biometric Consortium Conference in Tampa on Tuesday.

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Though the genetic information contained in an individual's DNA, which is in all human cells, has been used since the late 1980s to solve crime cases, analysis of DNA has remained frustratingly slow because DNA had to be sent to special labs to be analyzed. New are now ready to be evaluated and the FBI has received two basic types.

One is called the RapidHIT, which is made by IntegenX, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based company whose CEO Stevan Jovanovich was in the exhibit hall to explain how the Rapid DNA device can spit out an individual's DNA data within 90 minutes.