The 3d technique would be an attempt at actual security, the Lenovo technique is described in the IdeaPad manual as a convenience feature.

I don't foresee any major problems with Lenovo shipping this software on all their machines, though it would be nice if they made it crash less frequently and educated the user about the risks of using it.

People have locked things up with simple, easily copied metal shapes for a few thousand years, believing that this was security.

On my wife's IdeaPad I can log in by holding up my macbook in front of it with iPhoto showing a picture of my wife's face in full screen mode. I tried a few photos and the one that worked was taken face-to-face, in the same way that the inbuilt webcam would take it.
I found that I need to tilt the macbook screen slightly so the LCD viewing angle achieved the right level of contrast for the camera in the IdeaPad.

I could just use the password to log in, but that would be boring.