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Log On To Your Computer By Laughing At It

Posted by timothy on from the and-reboot-by-swearing dept.

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."

12 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. I wouldn't want to work there... by lightspawn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine hearing your coworkers laughing every few minutes with no apparent reason...

    Especially the ones who need to open a dozen remote sessions when they start working.

  2. This is the example they used... by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For example, the system could be used to follow an executive as they walked through an office, ensuring that their email was always available on the nearest computer.

    Thats what blackberry and other PDA's are for. Maybe you havent been in a office lately, but everyone has cubes, with people sitting at the computers. Execs are either in meeting rooms are on the go, not around peoples work spaces. Thats the problem with companies, good products, wrong utilization.

    I'd like to see this at a call center with 100 people in a room, all on headseats. Imagine all the people's computers switching around. ;)

    1. Re:This is the example they used... by AssFace · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.
    2. Re:This is the example they used... by Jellybob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Are you sure you're in fact not assigned to an ape training facility?

      The people I'm referring to here vary from the technically proficent, to never having touched a mouse in their life (since we're an IT training centre), and they all seem to comprehend the idea that it doesn't matter which computer they sit at.

      I dunno, maybe it's that very inexperience that does it... they don't see any reason why they *shouldn't* be able to use any computer.

  3. The very idea makes me laugh by samjam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  4. I know how ya'all are... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Funny

    " are using laughter recognition software to track and automatically log staff onto the computer nearest to them"

    Breaking in to a slashdotter's computer'd be easy. Just download a .WAV file from Revenge of the Nerds!

    *here's hoping the mods are in good humor today*

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  5. Snowball... by clambake · · Score: 3, Funny

    10 stock drops
    20 sullen employees, unable to laugh
    30 productivity ceases
    40 goto 10

  6. One small detail. by RALE007 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you'll notice towards the end of the article:

    "...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 .99c
  7. Right concept, wrong implementation... by Asprin · · Score: 4, Funny


    If they were smart, they'd drop this and develop an authentication system that works on swearing -- my computer just isn't that funny.

    --
    "Lawyers are for sucks."
    - Doug McKenzie
  8. Scene from an office by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Computer 1 <displays a BSOD>
    *nix user <pointing at computer> "HA-HA!"
    Computer 2: "User Nelson logged in".

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  9. We have ways of getting information... by nycsubway · · Score: 3, Funny

    Captor: "We have vays of dealing vit you... If you will not tell us the password to your system, vee will find vays of making you laugh... Ha Ha Ha!"

    Captee: "Uh Oh... I jush had a toof filled, I can't laff."

    Captor: "Bring in the Tickle Bear!"

    --
    http://github.com/gbook/nidb
  10. The headline oversimplified things by babbage · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's not [just] that you can log in by laughing, the system is intended to be more broadly biometric than that. If you actually read the article -- go on, it's short -- laughter is just one of the cues that the system will listen for:
    Computer scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, wanted to make it easier for staff to log onto networked computers. So they came up with SoundHunters, a program that recognises someone's voice or laughter and works out which computer is nearest to them. It could then be used to automatically log them on to the computer.

    [....]

    If the person is moving around the office, the agents can keep track of them by listening to their footsteps. "Once the agents have worked out the direction the person is going, they would even be able to stay one or two steps ahead," says researcher Arkady Zaslavsky. For example, the system could be used to follow an executive as they walked through an office, ensuring that their email was always available on the nearest computer.

    So what they're really saying is that this is intended to be a general purpose system for tracking a person's movement around a building, by listening for each individual's voice, footsteps, laughter, and probably other sonic cues.

    While that sounds pretty cool -- and is much less silly than the laughing aspect -- it has me wondering what happens when person A is hard at work at her computer, and boss B drops by to check in. Will A get booted & B get logged in? Will B be comfortable with her desktop showing up on random desks as she walks around the office?

    Okay, so the people working on this probably aren't stupid -- zany, but not stupid (hey, it is Damian Conway's school... :-). The mere presence of person B at person A's desk shouldn't force a user switch if person A is still sitting there. But the description of the system still leaves open the aspect that, as the article put it, the executive's desktop is going to be racing around the office to keep up with him, gleefully leaping several cubicles ahead in anticipation of where he is about to walk next. Other people are going to be able to trivially eavesdrop on that executive's desk, whether or not they intended to. Sounds risky to me.

    As cute as this idea is for some settings (Bill Gate's famed techno-home, for example), I think the corporate office or even a university department isn't the right place for it. As another commenter noted, logging into a machine should always be a deliberate act. Maybe it would be more prudent to replace the auto-logins with a new login screen saying "hello Doctor Falken, would you like to sign in?" At which prompt the user could reply "yes please, Hal" and if the voiceprint matches, he's all set.

    --
    DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL