Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Chinavision Face Recognition Door Lock
The Chinavision face recognition door lock is a time attendance system and access door lock. The device recognizes faces in 3 dimensions using an internal dual sensor and dual camera. It has night vision, a touch keypad, USB and Ethernet ports.
( Chinavision face recognition door lock )
The Chinavision face recognition door lock is "beautifully designed to compliment any imaginable decor", which makes it perfect for science-fictional contexts of all kinds.
For example, I think Jabba the Hutt had something like this. When visitors come to the forbidding gates in the middle of the desert waste, they are met at the door.
(Threepio and Artoo regarded by gate control)
An early sfnal use of this idea was introduced by Philip K. Dick in his 1953 story Colony; check out the robot door:
They came to Captain Taylor's offices. One of the guards rang the buzzer. "Who is it?" the robot door demanded shrilly."Commander Morrison orders this man put under the Captain's care."
...The robot's relay's clicked while it made up its mind. "The commander sent you?"
"Yes. Open up."
"You may enter," the robot conceded finally. It drew its locks back, releasing the door.
In Dick's 1965 story The Zap Gun, one of his characters improves security with a cephalic pattern door (much harder to duplicate than a face):
The doors of Mr. Lars, Incorporated, shut, tuned as they were to his own cephalic pattern.
(Read more about Dick's cephalic pattern door)
The "cephalic pattern" refers to the unique patterns revealed in the electrical signals of a person's brain. Dick was fascinated by this idea; see also his Cephalochromoscope (Cephscope), a fun consumer device.
Update: In their 1931 novel Exiles of the Moon, the Golden Age team of Schachner and Zagat describe a selective electric eye.
But the selective beam of the electric eye refused to swing open the portal. Already the orders of the master of the house had barred the door against her. The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell, remained dead.
End update.
From Chinavision via Dvice.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/14/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Living Space ")
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?' - Jane Webb Loudon, 1828.
Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...' - Arthur C. Clarke.
AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.' - Fritz Leiber, 1943.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
