What he should do is install a USB security device on his door. So to get in, he sticks his finger in, and then a voice says: "Welcome home, Dave", and the door swings open.
That would be cool, but I would be afraid of people trying to take my finger (maybe even the wrong one!). I'd rather just have someone take my keys like everyone else.
If I ever rigged up a biometric scanner, it would scan my entire body, including checking for heart-rate and EEG readings. In order to get in, I'd have to be present in full, alive, and not stressed out by an act of duress (calibrated to my normal level of stress during the pre scan, obviously.)
Aren't there situations where this could backfire? What if you just finished running around the block and need to get inside? What if you just finished running around the block away from rabid dogs and need to get inside FAST?
Perhaps this wouldn't be a good choice for a front door to a regular home. Perhaps the entrance to a secure facility, though, where time would never be an issue (with a keycard and a vocalized passphrase as well, for additional factors.) Not a nuclear launch silo, but perhaps a top-secret research facility.
I wonder what sort of impact losing part of a finger like that has on typing. I guess you'd probably adapt pretty quickly (I was wondering if the prosthetic was useful for things like typing, or a hinderance).
I'm sure losing any finger would affect your typing, but with practice the human body is capable of learning amazing things (like the people who learn to write fluently with their feet after losing both arms). Of course age affects this learning process too; a younger brain will more easily rewire itself. Typing doesn't require much strength. Losing your pinky finger, for example, has a huge effect on your grip strength (see Yubitsume: http://www.japanslate.com/pinky-fingers/ ).
Probably only plugs it in while copying files, so no Linux distro. Would also lose its novelty factor pretty quickly with me because my desk means I have to have my PC on the right side!
Does this make anyone else think of that old Are You Afraid of the Dark episode with the midget playing the computer virus, and how the kid gets a serial port in his palm?
Why the downvote? I think this is a great hack and I'm definitely not disrespecting his work - it's awesome. However, imagine the potential of great ideas like this combined with amazing looking prosthetics as discussed in the other article. If that's not a startup idea I don't know what is!
I don't think this qualifies as a garden path sentence because the reader doesn't "build an incorrect structure because the next word doesn't fit into that structure".
I don't recall where I red the story of people implanting tiny magnets under the skin of a finger tip. But I did find it interesting that they quickly developed a sense for magnetic fields, like from live wires. And if I were an electrician I'd get one of those.
"People who have rare earth magnets implanted in their fingers...a finger that feels electromagnetic fields along with the normal sense of touch."
"Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says."
Sounds really interesting, although the obvious health risks keep me from considering it myself.
A more interesting (to me) and less dangerous was a belt with an array of motors and an internal compass such that there was always a light buzz from the North. Apparently after wearing it for a few weeks you develop an uncanny sense of direction.
