A: 

I believe it can at least be done with Flash. I use an EasyBloom, a USB gardening diagnostic device. The flash app on their website access the device on my local laptop.

Sadly, I have no idea how they do it since I don't do Flash. :-(

hernan43
A: 

It's considered a security risk to expose local resources and the sandbox environments for the different plugins should deny access to these resources.

So I would say that the answer to your question is a No.

lothar
A: 

Flash can do it. Your users should allow it first. Check this link: Flash documentation for Security

YordanGeorgiev
Another option is purely relience on InternetExplorer , but I do not recommend that, since it's marke share is dropping and going down all the time ...
YordanGeorgiev