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"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
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| Palm Lock | ||
| A lock or seal which can be opened only by contact with the palm of the human hand to which it has been keyed. |
This is another wonderful creation of Herbert's. It is not clear if the lock is part of the knob or device that opens the door, or is just a lock.
| Jessica put a hand on the rail, began to climb. The rail felt cold under her sliding palm. She stopped at the door, saw it had no handle, but there was a faint depression on the surface of it where a handle should have been. Surely not a palm lock, she told herself. A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines. But it looked like a palm lock. And there were ways to open any palm lock--as she had learned at school. Jessica glanced back to make certain she was unobserved, placed her palm against the depression in the door. The most gentle of pressures to distort the lines--a turn of the wrist, another turn, a sliding twist of the palm across the surface. She felt the click. |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
Fingerprints are held to be unique; I wonder if a human palm offers more points for comparison, and is therefore more secure?
The need for greater data security has led to the use of a variety of biometric identification system. Recently, a device as small and inexpensive as a Pocket PC was made available with a reliable fingerprint scanner.
Significant work has been done in the last few years on palmprint identification. Some potential advantages may exist; the hand geometry and major palm creases can be captured using a lower resolution device. The device in Dune seems to rely only on the print.
Compare to the palm plate from The Mechanical Monarch, a 1958 novel by E.C. Tubb.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Dune
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Palm Lock-related
news articles:
- Biometric HandReader - Frank Herbert's Palm Lock?
- Biometric Deadbolt Lock Like A Palm Lock
- Fujitsu PalmSecure Hand Vein Scanner
- Amazon One Is Frank Herbert's Palm Lock
| Flimmer Navy Drone Flies And Swims |
| Indian Court Says Brain Scan Proves Murder |
| Background Draw-a-Secret (BDAS) Makes Graphical Passwords |
| ID-U Biometrics Eye Tracking Signature |
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
