Why Fingerprints?

So I have been doing lots of research into fingerprints and how they form and I came across some interesting information that I thought I would post. 

Fingerprints are all about friction, which is a force that resists motion.  As animals that use our hands a lot to grip all sorts of objects, the little ridges on your palms, fingers and feet help you to grip on to surfaces.  If you did not have fingerprints you would have a very hard time holding on to that glass of beer as you went for a drink, because your fingers would be smooth and have a very small coefficient of static (no motion) friction.  

As far as animals that have fingerprints, all primates have fingerprints and toe prints, and some even have tail prints where their tail has grooves to grip on to things.  One interesting fact however is that koala bears (actually marsupials), also have fingerprints.  

Quick little quiz.  Look at the fingerprints below and guess what species they belong to.  There are three options, Human, Chimpanzee, and Koala. The answer is in the comments, don’t cheat and post how you did! 

 Be on the lookout for my next post that describes how and when fingerprints are formed!

Incredible Biometrics

The movie The Incredibles features a scene where Edna Mode gains access to her den by use of Biometrics.  The Biometric part can be seen starting 30 seconds in until about 45 seconds into the clip. 

The clip is actually quite realistic considering all the technologies she uses are currently available.  The first thing she uses is just a pin number.  Although Biometric technologies are seen by many to eliminate passwords and pins, this adds an extra layer of security to her lair.  Next Edna uses a hand scanner which are already in use in many different places.  Edna then goes on to use an Iris or Retina scanner, it is not exactly clear which one, but based on the fact that she lowers her glasses it was probably a Retina scanner.  Finally she finishes by using voice recognition of her name.  This four step security system is a little paranoid but it would provide excellent protection, since the odds of beating all four of these technologies are very, very slim (especially with the huge machine gun if you fail). 

Flash Security

A few weeks ago I lost my flash drive.  Somewhere between using it at the computer lab and trying to use it at home it magically vanished.  I looked in lost and found and anywhere I used a computer before and did not find it.  

This got me thinking about the information I had on it and whether anything was sensitive.  Lucky for me whoever found/stole it would only get a bunch of boring papers of me trying to describe some chemical process and why the model doesn’t work (they never do).

If unlike me you keep sensitive info on your flash drive you should consider getting something high tech with lots of security.   Lucky for you I have the solution.  

The Defender F200 is a new flash drive by imation that incorporates a fingerprint scanner right on the flash drive.  The flash drive encrypts your data with 256 bit AES encryption, the same used by the CIA and many other government agencies to keep your data secure.    

It amazes me how small the entire device is considering the fingerprint scanner hardware and built in authentication.  This shows how mainstream fingerprint scanners are becoming now available on your flash drive.

This flash drive is amazing including being completely water proof.  So if you do happen to lose this flash drive you won’t be worrying about your data on it, you will be worrying about the $300 you sank on a flash drive. 

-Carlos

Self Evaluation II

The following post pertains to my Communicating Science Class, you can disregard it unless you want to read on how I think my blogging has been. 

Seeing Double?

Identical twins are well, identical right? Wrong.  They may look identical to the naked eye but twins still have different fingerprints and irises.  How do we know? Thanks in part to research by Kevin Bowyer and Patrick Flynn.

Every year in August the town of Twinsburg, Ohio becomes home to the largest official gathering of twins in the world.  And every year guess who you are sure to find there?  Yup, Bowyer and Flynn.

Bowyer and Flynn are researchers at the University of Notre Dame working on image based biometrics.  They have been developing Biometric technologies that compare face photographs, face thermograms, iris images and many others to identify people.

They find volunteers at the Twinsburg event, where they take high resolution pictures of the twins as well as 3-D face scanning and iris scanning.  This imaging helps them refine their technologies so that the program can tell identical twins apart.  

The research into identical twins is very important.  The duo has received two grants from the FBI for research into the distinguishing of identical twins based on biometrics.  It makes sense that it is important for the FBI to want two distinguish between twins.

Just as a side note: Two is a common theme huh? Twins, two researchers, two grants. Source.

-Carlos

 

Biometric Cell Phone

Biometrics is evolving at an astonishing rate.  So much so that fingerprint scanners are becoming extremely mainstream.  One of the newest uses of fingerprints scanners is on mobile phones.  No gimmicks, no fake scan your fingerprint on the touchscreen, its an actual scanner on the phone.  This technology is on the Motorola ATRIX 4G on AT&T.  Check out this video for a demo of the scanner.  Does this make any of you want to pick up an ATRIX? I know the phone's features are definitely tempting.

 -Carlos
 

BP spills Coffee

In my communicating science class we are studying how BP communicated about the oil spill and its implications.  I think that this video is a hilarious spoof of how the situation was handled.  Do you think they went over the line with the video? Or is that how you think BP reacted?