BiometricId
Latest
Google wins face-to-unlock for multiple users patent, makes us hungry for Android support
Google has won a face-to-unlock patent that seems to let multiple users share one "computing device." Point your face at the built-in camera, and you'll be allowed access to your personal profile -- and when it's time to move, someone else can do the same to take your place. While there's no connection to a real-world product and relates more to biometric ID than consumer technology, it does tickle hopes that we could see the feature included alongside official multi-user support in a future iteration of Android.
DARPA to develop biometric sensor capable of seeing through walls, pulling your heartstrings
The feds may soon know the way to your heart. Literally. Earlier this month, the forward-thinkers over at DARPA announced plans to develop new technologies capable of identifying human life through walls. The program, known as "Biometrics-at-a-distance," would essentially combine two pre-existing Pentagon projects: the Radar Scope, a device that can see through walls, and 2009's LifeReader, a system that uses Doppler radar to detect heartbeats. Though the military already employs a handful of devices to help soldiers see humans from behind walls, DARPA apparently thinks there's room for improvement. Most contemporary technologies, for example, only work from a maximum distance of eight meters, and aren't as accurate within more densely populated areas. DARPA wants its next project to extend this range beyond ten meters, while sharpening its ability to penetrate thicker obstructions. The agency also wants its sensor to identify individual humans using electrocardiography, which traces the heart's electrical activity. According to DARPA, this could allow users to pinpoint up to ten people at the same time, which could pay dividends during disaster rescue efforts, military operations, or your next Eyes Wide Shut party.
Conceptual airport identifier skips your naughty bits, scans straight to the bone
Not sure how you feel about those airport scanners that reveal your bits and pieces to under-paid guards? We think they make air travel rather titillating, but perhaps you'll be more comfortable with a conceptual scanner that skips your fleshy bits entirely and looks only at your bones. Being developed by a team of researchers at Wright State University, such a scanner could use existing technology to detect the skeletal structure of a person. The idea is that a person's bony bits are unique and, unlike one's face, impossible to disguise (short of some serious surgery). If a database of registered criminals and suspects could be created they could be identified with such a scanner, in theory even at a distance, far more reliably than via facial scan. Right now it's just a concept, but the idea is to have a working prototype by next year. After that, nobody's clavicles will be safe.
