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Hitachi Develops Boarding Gate With Built-In Explosives Detector

An anonymous reader writes "Hitachi, in collaboration with Nippon Signal and the University of Yamanashi, have successfully prototyped a boarding gate with built-in explosives detection equipment as part of efforts to increase safety in public facilities such as airports. The prototype boarding gate efficiently collects minute particles which have affixed themselves to IC cards or portable devices used as boarding passes, and can detect within 1-2 seconds the presence of explosive compounds using internalized equipment. With this method, it is possible to inspect 1,200 passengers per hour."

3 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cup check! by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The obvious solution is to stop flying to / from the USA. Obviously it's difficult if you need to fly for work, but then again I suppose some people's principles do have a price.

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  2. Multipliers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    > Why should the false positive rate be so low?

    Because it's multiplied by the millions of innocent passengers the gate will encounter.

    The false negative rate, by contrast, is multiplied by the handful of terrorists.

  3. The TSA will not accept it by Required+Snark · · Score: 5, Informative
    It doesn't conform to the TSA paradigm, so they will reject it.

    1. It is not intrusive enough.

    2. It replaces sullen TSA uniformed personal with hardware.

    3. It reduces the DHS conditioning intended to make the general public accept arbitrary behavior by the government.

    4. It is not as dangerous as full body radiation from scanners.

    There are a few things that might make the TSA like it.

    1. It is really expensive.

    2. It doesn't actually work.

    3. It will interfere with people for no discernible reason.

    On the whole, it's reducing the number and visible presence of the TSA uniformed types that will keep it from being adopted. They are already so expensive, intrusive, arbitrary, and incompetent that they don't need that level of automation.

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