Slashdot Mirror
Log On To Your Computer By Laughing At It
pshanks writes "New Scientist reports that Scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, are using laughter recognition software to track and automatically log staff onto the computer nearest to them as they physically move around a networked building."
The idea that people should be logged on to a workstation without their knowledge just because they were told a joke round the corner is enough to make me laugh.
Which might not be such a good idea, not so much as it a silly idea.
Logging on should always be a deliberate and considered act.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
"...For the moment, the laughter-recognition software is rather crude and cannot accuratly distinguish between different people..."
Soooo... basically you've come up with this pointless software, which is only interesting due to its novelty (I can't bring myself to say inventiveness), that doesn't work. Stop the presses! This is headline material!!
Beware blue cats moving at
Offices are setup that way because of the limits of the computer.
With the ability to use any computer to do any of your work would change the way the office is used, and therefore why it is interested.
Granted, you could do this now just by logging in normally, but the non-computer types of a company aren't going to get it.
They need something they can walk up to and just use - they won't bother with anything more.
To say that something won't ever work or catch on because of the current way you do something is nearsighted.
Should we switch to those new motorized coaches? Hell no! The way we do it now is with horses, and those motorized coaches scare the horses!
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.