Science has finally cracked the code of ancient gypsy magic, making it possible to unlock your cell phone with just a quick digital palm reading, rather than typing in a password. Engineers are still working out kinks in the program that will also inform you of the winning lottery numbers, where you’ll meet the love of your life, and the exact time and circumstances of your demise, but for now the unlocking the phone thing seems pretty good.
Palm security has been getting a renewed lease on life lately, as security experts realize what fortune tellers have known for years: That every person’s palm is a different, intricate network of veins, capillaries, and visions of the future that can identify you as you. Recent advances look to bring the technology to cell phones by harnessing their cameras to identify the unique vein pattern in the owner’s hand. Using just a quick snapshot of a palm, the technology can identify the hand of the phone’s owner and unlock without so much as a button press, or it can see an intruder’s hand and stay locked.
Since the technology uses light to read the patterns in your palm, there’s no need to even press your palm against the screen to get your phone back in gear, which is great news for anyone who would like to unlock their phone without an annoying password but would prefer not to mash the flat of their hand against the screen of their phone like a goon in public.
(via PhysOrg)
- Time to get one of these for your Battle.net account
- And for your Dropbox
- If DARPA has its way, passwords in general could be a thing of the past
