Fit to fly? Balance Board tapped to detect shifty characters

[kane]

Fit to fly? Balance Board tapped to detect shifty characters at airports


Nervous flyers, beware: a Department of Homeland Security-funded project is investigating whether Wii Fit Balance Boards might be good ways to detect signs of tension or unease in airport security lines.

The next step in the War on Terrorism?




As somewhere over 20 million Wii Fit
owners know, the Balance Board can detect your precise balance point,
making it a perfect keep-fit tool -- but the Future Attribute Screening
Technology project hopes detecting physiological signs -- including
rapid shifts in balance -- will help identify passengers who may have
hostile intentions.

"Researchers took a Wii balance board...and altered it to show how
someone's weight shifts. Studies are now under way to determine whether
there is a level of fidgeting that would suggest the need for secondary
screening," CNN said.

The Balance Board is just one of a suite of sensors the Boston-based
project is trialing; others include eye trackers and devices that
record respiratory and heart rates. Researchers say their goal is to
have a system ready for field tests in 2011.

Source:videogames.yahoo.com