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Eye Movements Could ID Computer Users

The password is becoming passé. Every week it seems, someone is proposing a new method for authenticating computer users when they attempt to access email or a bank account. There are finger swipes, brain patterns, palm prints, and even butt-prints. Now we can add eye movements to the list.

Oleg Komogortsev, an assistant professor in the computer science department at Texas State University-San Marcos thinks that how a person's eyes focus when he looks at an object can be as individual as a fingerprint. 

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Eyes make two kinds of movements. One is called a saccade, which is a swift, jerky motion that results when a person focuses. The other is called a fixation, which is when the eye rests on a given point. Our brains edit out the saccades most of the time, giving the illusion of continuous vision, but if you look closely at another person's eyes it's possible to see the saccades.

Komogortsev designed a system that tracks the eyes, using several different kinds of stimuli -- reading, looking for a dot on a screen and the classic Rorschach ink blots. With enough data, a computer can build up a picture of how an individual's eyes move.

Write WIth Your Eyes

The technology is still in its infancy. One problem is that it recognizes the wrong person about one time in three, which is nowhere near good enough.

But it could be combined with are other types of biometric authentication that rely on the eyes, such as retinal scans, which analyze the pattern of blood vessels on the retina or iris scans, which analyze the pattern in the iris. Neither of these technologies are fool-proof. Retinal patterns can change due to certain diseases or age, and iris scans can be fooled by high-quality pictures of the eye.

When combined with Komogortsev's eye movement solution, the error rate for iris scans drops to about 5 percent, which is more in line with other technologies.

Via TechNewsDaily

Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Jake Maheu

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Camera Uses Eye Blink to Snap Photo

Ever see something remarkable and wish you could just blink your eyes and snap a photo? If Mimi Zou, Royal College of Art in London alum, has her way this wish could come true. The recent graduate of the school’s Innovation Design Engineering program developed a camera prototype that tracks a person's eye movement and uses it to snap photographs.

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The camera uses biometric detection (the same kind used to scan irises for security purposes) to track the movement of the eye. When a user squints, the lens zooms in and when the person opens her eyes wide, the lens zooms out. To take a picture, a person stares at the desired area and blinks twice quickly.

Because the camera uses a biometric technology, personal user data can be recorded and saved and then used to automatically set the camera's preferences before it's used. For example, Zou is near-sighted, so as soon as the camera recognizes it's her, it adjusts the focus to accommodate her vision so that she can see clearly.

The camera is about the size of a normal one, but shaped just like a lens. Instead of a standard lens however, it has a digital display that sits behind the camera’s shutter and sensor. Zou hopes that Iris will usher in a new type of device that adapts to users, rather than making users adapt to them.

via Wired

Credit: Mimi Zou

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Heartbeat Rhythm Drives Animation

The heartbeat is a rhythm that's basic to humans -- aside from its literal significance, we use it as a metaphor for things that are "alive" to us. Now it's been captured as an interactive piece of visual art.

Phan Visutyothapibal, a master's student in New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, used a stethoscope and some off-the-shelf software and hardware to visualize human heartbeats. The brightness corresponds to the volume of the beats, and the speed of the animation to the heart rate. 

Visutyothapibal told Discovery News that the inspiration for the work came, in part, from a project classmates didn't understand. "Originally I tried making a 3-D rendering, using music to animate the features of a face," he said. "I showed it to my classmates and they all said there was too much going on."

So he decided to simplify. He put a microphone inside a stethoscope tube and used a cone as the basic shape for the visual display. That proved much more engaging and interesting (and less confusing).

Visutyothapibal's work will be shown at the ITP Spring Show on May 14 and 15.

Visualizing Heartbeat from Phan V on Vimeo

Credit: Phan Visutyothapibal

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Boeing Builds Phone for Federal Employees

Boeing is known best for its aerospace endeavors. Now the company is using the knowledge gained from building aircraft to make phones for the federal government and military. According to the president of Boeing Network and Space Systems Roger Krone, this is “probably” the first time an aerospace and defense industry giant will offer a smartphone designed for use on cellular networks.

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Boeing’s smartphone is nearing the end of its development cycle, which means it will probably run on the not-as-new Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It's rumored to be encrypted and have biometric access, among other security features. While an official number hasn’t been announced, the Boeing phone is geared towards a lower price point, compared to other encrypted phones that run about $15,000 to $20,000 each. Despite its super secret and secure demeanor, the phone will be compatible with regular Android apps and provide the same functionality and abilities that consumer market Androids do.

via National Defense Magazine and SlashGear

Credit: Boeing 

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Scan Hand for ATM Cash, No Card Required

In a move that seems like it should have happened in the year 2000, a Japanese bank announced it will be installing about a dozen automated teller machines that can read customers' palms to identify them. Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank will be the country's first to introduce the system.

First, Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank (Japanese site) customers will register their biometric information at a branch, according to Gizmag's Darren Quick. Then they'll be able to go to one of the new ATMs and get cash simply by scanning a hand and then typing in their birthdate and a four-digit PIN.

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This being technophilic Japan we're talking about, I would have thought every bank there had body-scanning ATMs by now. The thing is, the scanning technology is already out there but still requires every customer to use a card. Essentially the scanning has been an extra security measure.

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Following the massive earthquake and tsunami more than a year ago in Japan, scanning started to be seen in a new light. Instead of being extra security, it could mean standard security for customers who need cash in an emergency but don't have their bank cards on them.

The AFP reports that Ziraat Bank in Turkey was the first to use palm-scanning bank machines that don't need a card. In Japan, Ogaki Kyoritsu plans to install the new ATMs at 10 branches, two mobile banks and a drive-through location this September.

Sliding a well-worn piece of plastic into a machine to get cash has long seemed archaic, but I guess adding going card-free in the U.S. would pretty much guarantee higher bank fees. Ugh. As long as old-school plastic still works, I'm in no hurry to scan body parts for a $20 bill.

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Then again, there's something potentially freeing about not needing a plastic card. Look, guys, I just place my hand here and cash comes out! Still, I do feel kind of bad for parents who will have to explain how this works to little kids: "No, sweetie. I can't always just make money appear."

Photo: A file photo of a palm-scanning biometric ATM being demonstrated in Japan. Credit: Ogaki Kyoritsu

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New Spin on the Cyclometer Uses an iPhone

iBike Dash + Power: $749

Just as Clark Kent becomes Superman, your iPod Touch or iPhone can transform into the dynamic iBike Dash + Power just by popping into a 'phone booth.' In this case, it's a weatherproof holster that mounts quickly and securely to your handlebars or steer tube. But beyond merely protecting your device from the elements, it houses special electronics that easily allow you to track trip and workout info in real time.

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The iBike app receives signals from sensors and displays user-configurable info, including your trip and graphical interval workout data. Taking advantage of the iPhone's GPS capabilities, you can see real-time maps and download your actual bike route. And depending on your iPhone's memory, you can store up to six million miles of ride data at one-second intervals -- it records info even as you swap in the included spare battery, change to a different app or take a call (using a Bluetooth headset) mid-ride.

What sets the Dash + Power apart from the Dash CC ($169) and Dash CC Deluxe ($329) are its circuit board and special accelerometer, wind and elevation sensors that enable it to measure and report your power. That includes both FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and DFPM (Direct Force Power Meters) power. And it's in addition to wind speed, hill slope, elevation, speed, cadence, time, distance, laps, GPS coordinates and heart rate -- both numerically and with respect to your zone, using the included strap.

The iBike Dash + Power is compatible with Ant + sensors. It offers heavy-duty fitness testing. It can store multiple bike profiles. And you can download your ride data to a Mac or PC with their desktop application.

Credit: Velocomp

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Criminals Beware, iPhone's Gonna Getcha!

FbF mobileOne Fingerprint Scanner: $600

 

Closing in on criminals and potential suspects is going to get a lot easier for Federal agents and police officers that have iPhones. Fulcrum Biometrics has developed the FbF mobileOne, a fingerprint scanner that slips over an iPhone or iPod Touch to capture fingerprints and then compare them to those in the national database within ten seconds.

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Sadly, cops that are Android-loyal at home might have to deal with using an iPhone at work. Fulcrum is using Apple’s platform because it's more stable to start with. However they did acknowledge that developments for Android and Windows could be made in the future. The unit costs about $600 each, which compared to MORIS (a face and iris scanner that also connects to iPhone) at $3,000 a piece, would make it more accessible to smaller police units. Don’t go burning off those fingerprints yet; the company is still working with law enforcement agencies to build an application that will make it possible to access the FBI’s Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) database. 

Via: Cult of Mac

Credit: Fulcrum Biometrics

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High-Tech Nightshirt Monitors Your Sleeping Pattern

You wake up feeling refreshed and rested and notice that you are up earlier than you set your alarm. You smile and drift back to sleep convinced that a little extra sleep will make you feel even better. But alas when the alarm rings, you feel as if you had no sleep at all! You have fallen victim to your sleep cycle.

Nyx Devices is hoping to help the average person demystify their sleep cycle by wearing a ‘smart’ nightshirt that is embedded with electronics that measure a person’s breathing. Traditionally, to monitor somebody’s sleep, a lot of gadgetry and an overnight stay at a sleep lab was required. Now Matt Bianchi, a sleep neurologist in Massachusetts and co-inventor of the nightshirt claims that all the sophisticated measurements for brain, muscle, eye and heart activity can be reduced to a single measurement of the profile of a person’s breathing.

Bianchi tells Technology Review that ‘you can tell if someone is awake or asleep and which stage of sleep they are in purely based on breathing pattern." He explains that while deep sleep is characterized by very regular breathing with minimal variations, REM sleep (the phase during which we dream) has a much more erratic breathing pattern.

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The company hopes to use this technology to help insomnia patients but they expect that there will be a wider consumer demand. The shirt, unfortunately, will not wake you up at the right time in your sleep cycle but it will give you the ability to monitor your sleep pattern over time and experiment with things that might be making you more tired.

Credit: Todd Warnock/Corbis

 

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Computerized Clothing Could Control Your 'Scent Bubble'

Few things are as stimulating to our memory as our sense of smell. It not only has the power to bring back vivid images and experiences, but can also manipulate our emotions in an uncanny way. And yet in our day-to-day activities, we have very limited control over the smells to which we are subjected.

A British designer, Jenny Tillotson, wants to put an end to this unruly world of haphazard stimulation and give each person a fully controllable ‘scent bubble’ that is activated with high-tech clothing.

It’s called Smart Second Skin and it might redefine how we shop for our clothes. This technology calls for a system of ‘micro pumps’ and ‘micro tubes’ that work together to produce fragrances that are pulsed electronically, giving the wearer a suitable olfactory aura.

The most basic form of this technology would generate simple aromatherapy to enhance mood but Tillotson tells Innovation News Daily that the system can be used in a more sophisticated way as a regulator. If the clothing is combined with biometrics that measure stress indicators, then soothing or calming scents could be released whenever the stress levels exceeded a certain threshold. Similarily, refreshing or alerting scents can be used to fight drowsiness. 

Perhaps more significantly, because of the strong relationship between memory and the sense of smell, the technology may one day be used to stimulate the brains of Alzheimer’s patients in a futuristic version of Reminiscence Therapy.

Credit: Jenny Tillotson

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Rainbow Poo Coming to a Toilet Bowl Near You

Though its certainly not filled with gold, turns out there is a pot at the end of the rainbow, and it's made of porcelain.

For years, sagely, health-conscious individuals have read the contents of toilet bowls, seeking oracles of good or bad health. But never before has this practice been more colorful.

Scientists have genetically engineered E. coli bacteria to work safely as a biosensor that can detect the presence of toxins and secret an indicator pigment. The synthetically engineered bacteria (which has had its bad bacteria parts removed) could be used to test water or air samples for pollutants such as arsenic or carbon dioxide. Arsenic in the water, the sample turn blue, for example. But that's not all.

By the year 2039, the scientists -- who hail from Cambridge University --think that their so-called E. Chromi could be mixed in with a special probiotic yogurt, which when eaten, would colonize the bowels and release pigments in the presence of diseases such as cancer, stomach ulcers and salmonella. If your poo was green, for example, you might have an ulcer, or if it turned orange, you may want to get tested for colon cancer.

The scientists designed E. Chomi using standardized sequences of DNA, known as BioBricks, and inserted them into E. coli bacteria. In 2009, they won the Grand Prize at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM). Since then, the original team from Cambridge University in the UK has joined with designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King to explore the possibilities of their technology.

If E.Chromi's vision of future pans out, can you imagine the Double Rainbow guy's reaction?

E. chromi from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on Vimeo.

 

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