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Last week, we told you about Mindflex, a Mattel toy that lets players move objects with their brains. This week comes word that the same technology is making its way into a more functional application--a wheelchair that users can maneuver with thought alone.

Toyota has developed the wheelchair in collaboration with researchers in Japan. The system analyzes brain wave data using signal-processing technology and delivers neuro-feedback to the driver.

Brain wave-detecting technology, or electroencephalography (EEG), isn't new. In layman's terms, a device, usually a cap wired with sensors, detects a person's brain waves. That information is analyzed by a computer and applied to the device in question. Scientists have pursued the technology for decades, but have had difficulty achieving short response times, explains the Associated Press.

Toyota's mind-controlled wheelchair, however, has what appears to be the quickest response time yet: 125 milliseconds, or 125 thousandths of a second. The user can almost instantly steer right, left, and forward. To stop, the person in the chair must puff up a cheek, a motion that's then detected by the headpiece.

Because of this quick response time, plans are under way to turn the wheelchair into a commercial health care product. The most practical use would be for rehabilitation patients who have been paralyzed, suffered a stroke, or have other conditions that hinder their muscle control. So far, the research has centered on brain waves related to imaginary hand and foot control. However, Toyota hopes the system could ultimately be applied to brain waves generated by emotions.

(Credit: UPEK)

"I put down $500 for a Netbook and all I got was an integrated Webcam!" Don't complain. That's not a bad deal, but if you must, I'll see that Webcam and raise you an integrated biometric fingerprint scanner.

This week, UPEK announced the availability of biometric fingerprint scanners for Netbooks and other Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) with its TouchStrip TCS5 Fingerprint Sensor. Along with the sensor is the dedicated touch-based Fingerprint Suite Starter software that allows users to access password-protected Web sites with the swipe of a digit.

So as users get caught up in cloud computing applications and online storage of personal files to compensate for the lack of storage on their Netbooks, the burden of remembering a number of different passwords to access Facebook and Twitter accounts will be alleviated.

The Fingerprint Suite Starter will be available starting in March with support for Windows XP and planned support for Windows 7 Starter edition. In addition, Fingerprint Suite support for Linux will be available later this year.

There's no word on pricing, but UPEK is marketing its technology to Netbook makers, not end users. So odds are biometric scanners may show up as an option on some Netbooks in the future.

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This certainly isn't the first personal safe that's controlled by biometrics, but its design is a definite improvement over previous models we've seen. The "BioVault 2.0 Fingerprint Safe" from Sequiam Biometrics has the kind of futuristic look that's appropriate for a security technology of the future--in fact, it reminds us of the Enterprise's sliding doors on the original Star Trek.

It does seem kind of curious, however, that one of its highly touted features is the ability to work with the fingerprints of up to 50 people; we thought the idea was to keep the virtual "combination" a secret. Maybe that has something to do with its official endorsement by the NRA: It can be used to store a few emergency firearms accessible to all members of the neighborhood militia.

(Credit: Sarotech)

Portable hard drives are becoming cheaper with larger storage sizes, but one of the most overlooked areas is the issue of data security.

A new model from Seoul-based Sarotech, the curiously named "Cutie Bio," has integrated a fingerprint scanner into an external USB 2.0 drive. With a swipe of your finger, the data is instantly accessible; once it's removed from the PC, the information becomes encrypted gibberish.

At about $58.55, we would say it would seem a good deal for everyone--except for one small detail. The fingerprint software works with only Windows machines, which takes Mac owners out of the equation. There is a version that is not only Mac compatible, but also Linux-friendly, but it uses the more expensive 1.8-inch drives and the availability is yet to be announced.

(Source: Crave Asia)

(Credit: IDScan)

As if recent laws haven't made smokers feel like pariahs already, now they may have to start punching a timeclock too.

The "SmokeScreen" is a fingerprint-reading system that tracks smokers as they leave a building to sneak a cancer stick or two. Made by a U.K. company called IDScan, it's being targeted at clubs to monitor the comings and goings of patrons who presumably have paid their cover charges but are in dire need for a quick fix outside. Red Ferret says savvy club owners could even promote it as a status symbol, an "automatic doorman for VIP rooms."

The biometric device can be easily adapted to other venues as well. So if your boss is a control freak, you'd better pray that he never finds out about this.

(Credit: UPEK)

With Macs getting all tarted up in gold and diamonds these days, their security is more important than ever--inside and out. The "Laptop Wallet" may help you hang onto the machine itself, but you'll presumably want to keep any unauthorized perps locked out of the data as well.

UPEK's "Eikon Digital Privacy Manager" can help you do just that. It's a biometric device that reads fingerprints for access to whatever you want, connecting to the computer by USB, OhGizmo says.

The device has been available for PCs but can now be used on Apple computers with software downloaded separately. Although there are other fingerprint scanners on the market, this one has the distinct advantage of relative affordabilty at just $39.

(Credit: Cedia News)

You've got to hand it to eKey, quite literally. As biometric security technology becomes increasingly mainstream, companies have had to work overtime trying to figure out ways to get a leg (or an arm) up on the competition. So where fingerprint scanning is concerned, eKey had a novel thought: Why limit a system to just one finger?

Its "Bio-View" system actually makes use of three fingers, each with a different task--one to unlock the door, a second to control the alarm and the third to send an emergency alert if necessary, according to Cedia News. (We can guess which finger most people would use for that one.)

In a perfect world, though, it would be nice to have the option of using another way to control the system, perhaps with one's eyes for those times when your arms are full of groceries. But we suppose that would limit it to two functions--at least for most of us.

Marines make use of the Biometrics Automated Toolset system in Fallujah on July 19.

(Credit: Cpl. Joel Abshier/U.S. Marines Corps)

As state-level officials and other critics push back hard against the federal Real ID mandate here at home, the U.S. government is reporting success abroad with a biometric ID system it has installed in Iraq.

The automated biometric identity system being used by the Iraqi government now holds more than 350,000 sets of fingerprints, photos and retina scans, and "we increase the database by 4,000 or 5,000 each week," Army Lt. Col. John W. Velliquette Jr. said in a teleconferenced briefing this week. Velliquette runs the fingerprint and retina scanning center in Baghdad's International Zone. Iraqis are expected to assume full operation by next summer.

The system is used to verify the identity of members of the Iraqi police and military, prisoners and prison guards, and authorized gun owners. (The guns must be kept in homes; they're not to be carried out in the streets.) It's also used to identify criminals and suspects in criminal cases, Velliquette said. "We will get criminal hits; we get 10 to 20 a week from the minister of Interior."

And then there are the bureaucratic benefits. "We also weed out ghost employees," Velliquette said, "people who collect two paychecks but actually only work one job."

The ID system may not be as futuristic as the term "biometrics" would imply. Judging by the briefing transcript, it seems skewed heavily toward fingerprints--a biometric identification technology that's been around since the Sherlock Holmes era. Indeed, Velliquette referred to it as the Automated Fingerprint System, or AFIS.

And civilian employees of the Interior Ministry who collect information in the field via "jump kit" (Panasonic Toughbook computer, Livescan fingerprint scanner) can't upload the data directly to the main office. "Because of connectivity problems over here, the information is burned onto a CD (and) taken over to Adnan Palace," Velliquette said.

While we all hope that the ID system is helping to take some of the danger out of a dangerous place, the possibility exists that access by bad guys to the Interior Ministry database could lead to harm for some. Noah Shachtman, writing in Wired's Danger Room blog, called out Velliquette's concern that the database could become, in the lieutenant colonel's words, "a hit list if it gets in the wrong hands."

The business end of the BAT system.

(Credit: Cpl. Joel Abshier/U.S. Marines Corps)

Personal information in the database includes an individual's name, parents' names, address, birth data, height and weight--but not religious affiliation.

"Some sectors are entirely Sunni, some are entirely Shi'ite," Velliquette said, "so we take great pains to make sure this database stays in proper hands."

At the moment, the only people in Baghdad with access to the main database are seven American contractors and 24 employees of the Interior Ministry.

Actually, there are three biometric systems in operation. In addition to AFIS, there's the Biometrics Automated Toolset system, which is used to identify residents of particular cities, and the Biometric Identification System for Access, which is used for access to bases and to the International Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi officials and foreign diplomats work. All of the local systems are linked to the Pentagon's Biometric Fusion Center, in Clarksburg, W.Va. But they don't connect to each other, meaning that someone recorded in a BAT database in Fallujah who then moved to Baghdad wouldn't necessarily be readily identified.

The U.S. Marine Corps has found the BAT system to its liking. Fielded initially for use in military detention centers, it has come into everyday service on a much wider scope by units in Iraq (and Afghanistan). Residents of Fallujah, for instance, have to show ID badges created in connection with the system to get past checkpoints. "With the occupation here, badges have become part of the Iraqis' way of life," Cpl. Jonathan Rudolph, the BAT system noncommissioned officer with 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, told Marine Corps News recently.

As of the end of July, Marine BAT system operators had completed, updated or renewed over 5,200 ID cards since the beginning of June.