The Pentagon Has a Laser That Can Identify People From a Distance By Their Heartbeat (technologyreview.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A new device, developed for the Pentagon after U.S. Special Forces requested it, can identify people without seeing their face: instead it detects their unique cardiac signature with an infrared laser. While it works at 200 meters (219 yards), longer distances could be possible with a better laser. "I don't want to say you could do it from space," says Steward Remaly, of the Pentagon's Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office, "but longer ranges should be possible." Contact infrared sensors are often used to automatically record a patient's pulse. They work by detecting the changes in reflection of infrared light caused by blood flow. By contrast, the new device, called Jetson, uses a technique known as laser vibrometry to detect the surface movement caused by the heartbeat. This works though typical clothing like a shirt and a jacket (though not thicker clothing such as a winter coat).
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Paid subscribers can see articles before other people. Articles that can only be seen by paid subscribers are red. However, because of shitty perl code that's been hacked at for years, there's a race condition so there's a brief interval where the unwashed masses are allowed to see an article before its colour is updated. You just happened to load the page at the right moment to catch the race condition.
Yeah right (Score:2)
I'd settle for a wrist watch that can accurately record my heart rate without leaving a 0.5 inch deep mark on my wrist.
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The military is probably willing to pay 100,000-1,000,000 a laser. If you wanted to spend that much on a wrist watch, I guarantee you could get a heart rate without leaving a mark.
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As a wrist watch?
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Yeah. If you want to write me a contract for 100 watches at 1 million a piece, I will get you a heart rate monitor that works without digging into your skin. I'll quit my current job and start tooling up ASAP.
It's hard to make it work when you need to mass produce it, but it should be trivial if you don't need to keep costs down.
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I'm fairly sure those effects of movement can be filtered out.
Be careful with that (Score:2)
Put too much power into that laser, and all those people will have the same heartbeat... zero.
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Put too much power into that laser, and all those people will have the same heartbeat... zero.
Select laser power level -> _
1 ) Target identification and range
2 ) Illuminate target for airstrike
3 ) Dazzle and disorient target
4 ) EXTERMINATE!
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I got you to reply.
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5) Let pass
A good autonomous system would do number 1, then automatically choose from 2-5.
Um... this is total Winter Soldier (Score:2)
Sure will be tough (Score:2)
This works though typical clothing like a shirt and a jacket (though not thicker clothing such as a winter coat).
Sounds like this will discriminate against fugitives from justice in warmer climates.
Rainbow Six Predicted This (Score:2)
I recall this tech was used in the novel Rainbow Six, and the game too I believe. 'Heartbeat detectors' they were called, worked through walls, and were used in order to tell if enemies were hiding behind doors, in corners etc.
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The tech in Rainbow Six, which I believe also exists, detects the presence of heartbeats without visual line of sight and covers an area (possibly by scanning ala radar). This identifies which specific person it's intentionally pointed at.
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Tom Clancy has been known to take technology known to exist to the public and extrapolate out how it might be developed and utilized by the military, sometimes with enough accuracy to get the attention of people in the know. He's been visited at least once by people arriving in a black GMC Suburban with no license plates to question him on where he found out about the stuff he put in his books. If Clancy used some technology in his books then it's likely to exist now or very soon. He's that good.
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He's right-ish. The government has interviewed him before, thinking he had a source leaking confidential information. And he had put it together from open records. But, of course, they weren't license-plate less Suburbans, they were Crown Vics or something in a dull paint job registered to some VA/MD corporation.
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Actually, he's not that good anymore, he's dead.
Pentagon creates bullsh*t (Score:2)
A new device, developed for the Pentagon after U.S. Special Forces requested it, can identify people without seeing their face: instead it detects their unique cardiac signature with complete bull shit.
While it works at 200 meters (219 yards), longer distances could be possible with a better bull shit. "I don't want to say you could do it from space," says Steward Remaly, of the Pentagon's Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office, "but longer ranges should be possible." Contact bull shit sensors are of
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So probably they've found some secret way to identify people surprisingly well, but to keep it secret and effective they've announced their magic laser instead.
"No, no, it's not our secret person-identifying technology! It's our magic laser we told you about!"
Maybe the tech is unlikely to work as well as it is advertised but carries enough weight in plausibility to get people to notice.
Kind of like Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars Program)? As I understand it the technology would have never worked but it kept the other guys nervous on how to counteract it, suspicious on whether or not it would actually work, and therefore spent a lot of money on trying to deal with this new weapon system.
Nice touch on saying a winter coat will stop this la
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There was some research published back in 2010 on using heart beats for identification, with a 23% failure rate. It's since been commercialized and naturally the company selling it claims better accuracy, but I couldn't see any independent tests. They use contact sensors.
In any case this is fairly useless for most purposes, since if it works anyone can clone your heat beat from hundreds of metres away. Even in military applications it's hard to think of uses for it. Maybe drone targeting.
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...or are you just happy to see me? (Score:2)
"Uh no....we're giving you a physical...(lowers laser 2 feet)...turn your head and cough."
Liars (Score:1)
Laser mic used as a laser mic? (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
Sharks with frickin lasers on their frickin heads were spotted at the beach tracking tourists.
Where is the positive innovation? (Score:2)
Device to Justify Killing Wrong Person (Score:2)
sound does travel in a vacuum (Score:2)
Sound does travel in a vacuum, and it travels at the speed of light.
You know you're a weenie and not a true geek when you complain about explosions of enemy spacecraft playing on the victorious spacecraft's playing on the bridge's main viewscreen with an audio sound track, because sound doesn't travel in a vacuum.
Oh yes it does—if your engineers have half a wit, and the astrobucks contractor studded sensory lasers into your unobtanium hull plates.