Sci/Tech Doors Unlock With Keyed Vibrations Sent From Your Smartphone Through Your Bones

[Furby]

It gives the term skeleton key a whole new meaning: a prototype system from AT&T Labs that beams a unique vibration through a user’s bones to be picked up by a receiver in a door handle, automatically unlocking the door at the touch of the handle. Using piezoelectric transducers, the system could someday be embedded in smartphones or wristwatches to create doors that automatically unlock when the right person touches them and stay firmly dead-bolted when anyone else tries to gain entry.

Other individual-specific implements could be rigged to recognize different people, so a car shared by a family could automatically adjust the driver’s seat and mirrors when a new person stepped into the car, or a computer could switch to the right parental settings depending on whether Dad or Junior is touching the keyboard.

Read more at PopSci.com.