ID'ing People By How They Walk

thedude writes "Just stumbled upon this article about a system for ID'ing people by the way they walk. Maybe a combination of facial, voice, and gait recognition will increase the accuracy of these systems? I'll be sure to waddle next time I'm at the airport."

Comments

Ministry of Silly Walks

[foistboinder]

Obligatory Monty Python reference...

nothing new here

[tps12]

The Bee-Gees have been doing this for years.

Us fat bastards have no choice about waddling...

[$rtbl_this]

...you insensitive clod!

Damn my waddle.

[dmorin]

Last day of high school, a friend and I dressed in gorilla suits (something that I'm sure would not be allowed these days). I worked at the supermarket across the street, so that morning we wandered over there in costume to buy some poptarts. As we were shopping a voice came over the loudspeaker, "Could we please see the gorillas at the courtesy booth?" So I sauntered up to the booth and stood there. The lady in the booth paused and said, "That's Duane!" She said she recognized my walk.

My wife is a physical therapist. As a computer geek, I tend to recognize very bizarre techie things because they catch my eye and I feel obliged to mention them. She does the same thing with gaits. Whenever we're at the mall she will point out people and tell me the name of whatever condition they have that caused them to walk like they do.

Clean Rooms

[Atomizer]

This is pretty interesting. I work a lot in a clean room at a wafer manufacturer and you can't see anything but peoples eyes when they are in the clean room. You quickly learn to recognize people from their body shape, size and of course, body language. In fact if you meet somebody in the cleanroom for the first time, it's always surprising how different they can look without a mask on.

Access denied

[Lord Sauron]

Access denied. Please remove your leg cast and walk normally.

Animation concept

[quantax]

In this animation book I have, the writer (the guy who animated Roger Rabbit, I forget his hame off hand), demonstrated how a walk can characterize a person. He sited an example where he saw a man walking behind a wall, with just his head showing above the wall as he walked. The man's head did not bob up and down, and the animator decided that the man had to be gay. If you've ever noticed someone walking 'elegantly', they glide more than walk. He ran up to the man to find out if his assumption was correct (never mind the non-PC nature of the observation) and found he was right. Thats a good indicator of how much you can learn about people through simple observation of their movement.