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The best of Public Access Vol.10: Who's there?
by08.20.2015
This week, we live-blogged IDF and its scary robots, reviewed the OnePlus 2, and debated the merits of Apple Music. Also: Giant robots! Space! And Knock Knock! (That's not a joke.)
Yankee Stadium to fans: Scan your thumb and skip the line
Welcome to the future, sports fans – you can use your smartphone to track trades, Twitter can tell you who's on the DL, and now your fingerprints can get you into the ballpark faster. Beginning August 7th, Yankee Stadium will roll out the Clear biometric security service to visitors, which allows fans to use a "Fast Access" line by registering their fingerprints and driver's licenses.
This Netherlands bank lets you use your voice as your password
Online banking is usually an exercise in remembering complicated pin numbers or passwords -- but what if there was an easier way? In the Netherlands, there is: banking customers who use the ING Netherlands app can now long into their bank account, check balances and make transfers using just their voice.
Technology turns touchscreen displays into biometric scanners
A team of researchers from Yahoo Labs has developed a much affordable alternative to fingerprint sensors for phones. It's a biometric system called "Bodyprint," and it only needs devices' capacitive touchscreen displays to authenticate body parts. Since displays have lower input resolution compared to specialized sensors, the system requires you to use larger parts of your body. It can recognize your ear, fist, phalanges, set of five fingers and your palm -- simply press any of them on the screen for access. In addition to serving as your phone's gatekeeper, it has a number of other potential applications, as well.
Uber explores using biometrics and lie detectors to screen drivers
Uber has come under fire for allegedly doing little to protect passengers from unscrupulous drivers, and it's determined to improve that reputation -- in some cases, using relatively unusual methods. The ridesharing company's recently hired Head of Global Safety, Philip Cardenas, tells customers that Uber is exploring numerous techniques for verifying drivers, such as biometrics, voice fingerprinting and lie detector tests. "Scientific analysis and technology" should help make up for gaps in background check infrastructure around the world, Cardenas says.
New MasterCard combines a fingerprint sensor with NFC
For awhile now, there's been a number of companies trying to simplify payments for everyone. Google did so with Wallet and, most recently, Apple announced it would be doing something similar with the soon-to-be-launched Apple Pay, among others. Not surprisingly, MasterCard's, synonymous with paying for stuff, is working on a product of its own. In partnership with Zwipe, a company that focuses on biometric tech, MasterCard has built a charge plate with a built-in fingerprint sensor and NFC, albeit for trial purposes. The Zwipe MasterCard, as it is currently known, is said to be extremely secure -- all data is stored directly on the card, rather than an outside database, for example.
Over 65 million voice samples guard your bank data from scammers
Two-factor authentication might be all the rage these days, but it sounds like there could be an even more secure way of protecting against fraud -- your voice. It's being employed by major banks including Wells-Fargo and JPMorgan Chase to weed out scammers who call financial institutions armed with the info gleaned from cyber attacks, according to the Associated Press. The system combines recorded voice samples with blacklists of repeat calls from would-be criminals, and has reduced fraud attempts by as much as 90 percent so far. And if you're wondering where the banks have gotten these 65 million-plus voice samples, well, we've all likely heard the familiar notice that a call may be monitored or recorded before being connected to an operator. So, that explains that.
Hexoskin's new wearable is a smart shirt for exercise buffs
The wearable craze isn't only about fashionable watches and savvy glasses. After all, remember how tech giant Intel's vision for the space included a shirt? Hexoskin, a Canada-based startup, has similar beliefs, and that's why it recently introduced its biometric smart tee -- Ralph Lauren's doing it too. The newly developed shirt, aimed at people who are fond of exercising regularly, is equipped with sensors capable of tracking over 42,000 data points every minute. Naturally, given that Hexoskin designed its product with athletes in mind, the shirt's bread and butter is to gather stats during physical training sessions, although it can also track daily activities such as sleep. Unfortunately, Hexoskin's wearable is only available in the US at the moment, where the starting kit sells for a cool $399.
Apple's next cash cow could be your fingerprint
The mobile payments arena may not seem so big right now, but make no mistake: We're just seeing the beginning of a rapidly growing trend. Some estimates we've seen from market research firms put the future mobile payment market in the US alone at around $90 billion spent in 2017. Compared to that, the $12.8 billion spent in 2012 is just pocket change underneath the couch cushions. Apple's very much aware of the revenue potential in this category, and it's taking the possibility seriously. "Mobile payments in general is one [area] that we've been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID." On today's quarterly earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that people love to buy content using Touch ID, the fingerprint reader featured on the iPhone 5s. "Mobile payments in general is one [area] that we've been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID," Cook said. "We're not limiting ourselves just to that." This is the first direct confirmation that mobile payments were at least on the table in some form when Apple began developing Touch ID. This wasn't a promise from Cook that anything will happen in the near future, but it seems as though Apple would be leaving a lot of money on the table if it sat on the opportunity.
This headset uses sensors and psychology to control gamer rage
Designer Sam Matson has a solution to gamer rage that doesn't involve throwing things at your screen. Introducing Immersion, a headset that monitors your heart rate and increases a game's difficulty the more frustrated you become. It may sound like a heart attack waiting to happen, but the point is to help you control anger rather than let it escalate. Matson designed a shooter-style game on the Unity platform, adding in the ability to interpret a player's pulse rate. Data from the headset's optical pulse sensor is sent to the game via Bluetooth, resulting in even more hopeless combat when you're getting aggravated. The inspiration behind the headset? Matson's brother, whose Call of Duty skills were sinking as he became increasingly frustrated. Immersion isn't commercially available yet -- and we're not sure how many gamers would appreciate this counterintuitive approach to minimizing anger -- but we can definitely see the headset integrating with other sensor-laden gaming tech like the Oculus Rift to track mood changes in addition to your body's movements. Check out the prototype via the source link below.
Chaos Computer Club says it's beaten Apple's Touch ID fingerprint reader (video)
Already feeling secure about using just your fingerprint to unlock the new iPhone 5S? European hacker association Chaos Computer Club claims it can be circumvented with "easy everyday means." According to CCC hacker "Starbug", tactics laid out in a how-to from 2004 are all that are required, with just a higher res fake needed to beat the Touch ID reader. The process, requires a 2400 DPI photograph of someone's fingerprint from a glass surface, which is then laser printed at 1200 DPI and used to create a thin latex sheet that serves as the fake. Simple, right? It's a bit more labor intensive than the old way (just watching someone input their passcode or pattern) but users may want to consider fingerprint access as a measure intended more for convenience than security. [Thanks, Frederic]
Touch ID is huge for businesses and employees, but for different reasons
Apple's newly revealed iPhone 5s sports a number of improvements over its predecessor, but if there's one feature that truly sets the device apart from other iPhones (if not from all previous smartphones), it's Touch ID. The Touch ID sensor built into the home button of the 5s can read your fingerprint as an alternative to swipe-to-unlock or PIN/password entry. You can use this digital wizardry to make iTunes purchases and unlock the phone itself. This futuristic tech might be a fun tool for the average smartphone user, but the feature will truly shine when it enters the corporate scene. A big problem The business world is fighting a two-front war in the name of security: Companies are doing their best to keep information locked down (both to comply with internal policies as well as government-mandated privacy efforts like HIPAA), while at the same time corralling employees that see convenience as the only priority. Businesses large and small have relied on applications like Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync for years to set up secure mailboxes for employees running a wide array of devices. These days, smartphones are a huge area of concern thanks to the relative ease with which they are lost (compared to a laptop, for example) as well as a user base savvy enough to find ways around the policies in question. Mobile-device management tools (like Mobileiron, AirWatch and Apple's own MDM controls in OS X Server and iOS) are an essential part of the equation as enterprises balance productivity and bring-your-own-device policies with security and corporate priorities. "Hello all," a forum post on AndroidCentral begins. "My work recently implemented a new policy where the phone must be unlocked if using the exchange server email. My issue with it is I now loose [sic] my slide to unlock to the camera or other options based on the roms. Is there any way around it?" This isn't an isolated case of an employee seeking out loopholes to company security efforts -- it's happening every day, and it's not isolated to Android. A cursory search of jailbreak apps for iOS immediately produces options for bypassing company-enforced device locks. Users who seek out these solutions aren't doing so because they want to put sensitive business information -- or their own jobs -- in jeopardy; it's just a pain to type in a four-plus digit code every time they check their email or update their corporate social network. Similarly, the businesses that implement these lockdowns aren't necessarily the ones making the call; legal and regulatory constraints, in certain fields, may take priority. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), for example, mandates all healthcare employees who may have patient data on their smartphones -- including names, contact info, photographs and medical records -- set up passcodes and screen time-out features to ensure sensitive data isn't leaked. An elegant solution But now, on a mainstream smartphone platform, there will be a flagship device that offers both the convenience of a one-touch unlock and an unrivaled level of security. Touch ID addresses the concerns of businesses while giving users fewer reasons to seek out workarounds, and at the moment there is quite simply nothing to rival it. It's a win / win. Or a win / win / win if you count Apple, which stands to gain a lot of fans in the business security sector. Forward thinking indeed.
Apple reveals Touch ID, a fingerprint sensor built into the iPhone 5s
In a move sure to delight security and privacy gurus, Apple revealed today at its iPhone event that the all-new iPhone 5s features a fingerprint sensor built into the home button. The technology is built into a ring around the home button that can scan sub-epidermal layers of your skin in order to identify you without the need to a passcode or other more archaic security measures. But beyond just allowing you to access your phone, Touch ID can be used to verify things like iTunes purchases without a password. Apple claims that the process of setting it up is super simple, and given the fact that it is a biometric sensor, it's certainly more secure than your mother's maiden name. To further please security advocates, Apple confirmed that the data is never stored on Apple's servers or backed up in the cloud -- it's all saved only to the device in your hand.
iOS 7 beta 4 hints at upcoming iPhone fingerprint sensor
Ever since Apple's purchase of biometric sensor company AuthenTec last year the rumor mill has been abuzz with predictions that a future iteration of the iPhone would employ built-in fingerprint authorization. Now, as 9to5Mac reports, Twitter user Hamza Sood has discovered a folder in the newly released iOS 7 beta 4 that references a biometric user interface, complete with descriptions of a setup process that includes images of a color-changing fingerprint and a person holding an iPhone with their thumb on the Home button. Earlier this month Apple was granted a patent for an in-display fingerprint sensor which would allow for biometric functionality while negating the need for a separate sensor panel. This new evidence certainly isn't a confirmation of such a feature being included in the next iPhone -- rumored to be called the iPhone 5S -- but it's definitely more validation than we normally see regarding rumors of this magnitude. [Image credit: Hamza Sood]
Xbox One's Kinect discerns heartbeat and who has the controller
The Xbox One's next-generation Kinect has a greater interest in your facial features, and is capable of discerning your identity, even if you hand off the controller. In a brief demonstration in one of its Kinect testing rooms, Microsoft showed press how the Kinect kept track of two player profiles, each tied to a controller in use. When Player 1 and Player 2 swap controllers, the Xbox One is able to recognize which profile is the new Player 1. The Kinect also monitors the position of players, meaning it can match portions of split-screen games to the side of the screen at which that player is looking. This may also translate to fighting games, which is good news if you're the sort to get confused when your spot in the couch isn't aligned with your character. [Update: The Xbox One controller itself shouldn't go without credit, as it houses an infrared LED that helps with pairing and identification.] Microsoft also demonstrated a few more tricks made possible by the new Kinect's enhanced sense of depth, its greater field of view - which does make closer gaming in smaller apartments a more feasible – its ability to see in the dark via infrared, and its flattering scrutiny of facial features. By examining your face's skin color and transparency, the Kinect and Xbox One are able to estimate your current heart rate. Whether or not someone puts that information to good use in Kinect games or fitness programs is another matter, as we've learned from Nintendo's flatlined "vitality sensor." Valve has experimented with biometric data in games too, adjusting game difficulty, objectives and timers in response to the player's physical state. With a Kinect shipping alongside every Xbox One, and assuming the camera is relatively accurate, biometric influence over gameplay may become less esoteric in the near future.%Gallery-189064%
Valve measures sweat during Left 4 Dead play
Valve tinkers with a lot of things – whatever it feels like, mostly – but has a particular interest in biometrics and direct player feedback within games. At the Neurogaming Conference last week, Valve Experimental Psychologist (seriously, whatever if feels like) Mike Ambinder described a few tests he'd recently run, as reported by Venture Beat. In one test, Valve measured how much players sweat while playing Left 4 Dead, as correlated to their levels of arousal – just as Valve boss Gabe Newell specified back in March, concerning biometrics in the Steam Box. Another experiment gave players four minutes to shoot 100 enemies, and the game would move more quickly as the player showed signs of nervousness. Valve also created a successful version of Portal 2 controlled with players' eyeballs, but it was necessary to separate aiming and viewpoint – where your eyes are looking and where your head is facing – for that to work properly. The Steam Box will host some sort of biometric scheme, Newell said in that March interview. "What we've found is you can directly measure player state and it turns out to be very useful," Newell said. "You need to be able to directly measure how aroused the player is, what their heart rate is, things like that, in order to continue to offer them a new experience each time they play."
AOptix Stratus lets iPhone users check ID through eyes, faces, fingers and voices
The many attempts at weaving biometric identification into mobile devices have usually focused on only one aspect at a time, whether it's fingerprints or voices, and often for access to just the device itself. AOptix isn't quite so narrowly focused. Its new Stratus system combines an app with a custom iPhone 4 / 4S case (the Stratus MX) to verify faces, irises, fingerprints and voices for grander purposes, whether it's office workers checking in or entire national ID programs. The bundle should be more portable than most such alternatives, as well as more intuitive through its familiar interface. Odds are that you won't be buying a Stratus kit to scan friends and family at home, though. Apart from the bundle's lack of support for the iPhone 5 or any non-iOS platform, the Stratus software in the App Store isn't an impulse purchase at $199 -- and an emphasis on quotation-based case sales likely means you'll be the scanner's target, not its owner.
Australian firefighters test data-transmitting pills to monitor biometrics during work
A new swallowable pill has been trialled with 50 firefighters in Australia, aimed at monitoring body temperatures and other vital readings when working under extreme conditions. Using Equivital's VitalSense Core Temperature capsules, they transmit readings to the companion EQ02 LifeMonitor, housed on the chest. This then sends data on skin temperature, heart rate and respiration rate to an external computer. If a firefighter's core body temperature is increasing too quickly, they can then be moved from the frontline to a recovery area, hopefully reducing accidents and deaths caused by heat exhaustion. Until now, the standard method involved measuring body temperatures through the ear, but this new method -- which was also used to monitor Felix Baumgartner's 23-mile drop to Earth -- offers a faster, more effective way of monitoring multiple vital signs. Research has so far focused on monitoring a firefighters' core temperature when they've been exposed to temperatures between from -3 to 124 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, but according to News.com.au, testing will continue on the Equivital capsules, with temperatures likely to go as high as 600 degrees Celsius -- about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. We're just hoping that electrical firewands are next on the list.
Apple files patent application for fingerprint sensor that can be transparent or opaque
While Apple has flirted with biometric-based patents before, we've yet to see them implemented in real-world technology. That hasn't stopped it from filing yet another one though, as the latest application reveals a fingerprint sensor apparently embedded into the iPhone itself. The patent describes a hardware "window" that can become selectively "transparent or opaque." When transparent, it would reveal a component comprised of an "image capture device, a strobe flash, a biometric sensor, a light sensor, a proximity sensor, or a solar panel, or a combination thereof" as a method of unlocking the phone. According to the filing, the biometric sensor in question might indeed be a fingerprint reader. The document goes on to describe an alternative method using face or eye recognition technology that can be used not just for security purposes, but for possible e-commerce solutions like completing an online transaction. Of course, take any of these patent applications with a generous pinch of salt -- we haven't seen an Apple stylus yet, for example -- but perhaps this is the reason Apple bought fingerprint sensor maker AuthenTec back in July.
Researchers use bioimpedance as a biometric, let health monitor devices know who you are
Wouldn't it be great if fitness and medical gadgets automatically knew who was wearing them? Researchers from Dartmouth have come up with a new way to provide health monitors just such an ability using a tiny electric current and a bioimpedance sensor. You see, each person's body provides a different amount of opposition to electrical current, so bioimpedance can be a unique biometric identifier. The researchers' idea is to create a bracelet that uses bioimpedance readings to recognize its wearer in a secure, unobtrusive manner and communicate that identity to other wearable devices. Using such a bracelet, "the devices discover each other's presence, recognize that they are on the same body (and transitively learn from the wrist device whose body), develop shared secrets from which to derive encryption keys, and establish reliable and secure communications." As opposed to other biometrics or password authentication, bioimpedance readings can be taken passively, which is much more appealing than remembering passcodes or scanning fingerprints and retinas. For now, the researchers have created an eight-electrode proof-of-concept bracelet, but its accuracy leaves something to be desired -- it correctly identifies its wearer only 80 to 90 percent of the time, whereas fingerprint recognition has a failure rate of less than 1 in 1,000. So, we're a ways off from bioimpedance-based security, but research is ongoing, and you can learn all about it at the source below.
