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Future Cell Phone Knows You By Your Walk

Posted by Zonk on from the i-want-my-gun-to-know-me-better dept.

jangobongo writes "Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have come up with a unique way to secure your cell phone if it should get lost or stolen: 'Gait code'. Motion sensors in the phone would monitor the walking pattern (or gait) of whoever is in possession of the phone, and if the 'gait' doesn't match a pre-established biometric the phone would require a password to operate. The prototype cell phone correctly identified when it was being carried by someone other than its owner 98% of the time. The research team points out (powerpoint document) that this method could also work for PDAs, laptops, USB tokens, smart cards, wallets, suitcases, and guns."

2 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Better biometric than fingerprints? by ThinkingInBinary · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This seems like a better choice of biometric than most, because unlike a finger, it can't be cut off or "cloned" using gelatin or another way of transferring the fingerprint. Now, it might be possible to invent a "bug" that records someone's gait and feeds it to a set of servo motors that convince the phone you're them, but that's beyond what most people's resources and significantly harder than picking up a latent fingerprint.

    --
    ttuttle is a rankmaniac
  2. Re:The Slashdot Obvious (tm) by Unfallen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "...the engineers who spent years designing this must be complete idiots, and would never think of these things on their own."

    Ah, if only sarcasm were a form of proof. Unfortunately, history reveals that a bunch of people in lab conditions (or, indeed, even during controlled tests) may not actually think up everything. The ability be blinded by new science, to the detriment of old problems, is nothing new. Take Persil Power for instance - years of R&D, along with voluminous testing in particular countries didn't particularly stop it from being a complete shambles (in both technical and marekting terms) in the real world. ("Heavens, people want to wash old clothes? That's not in the spec!")

    The race to solve a single problem, or to implement a new "discovery", often leads to a whole bunch of things that nobody would (or, perhaps could) ever think of. Of course, they'll probably be things that nobody on /. actually ever predicted too...