Google Glass to make passwords from sounds in your head

With biometric technology becoming increasingly popular, which currently includes fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, this particular group of scientists want to use the inside of your skull as a log-in key

With biometric technology becoming increasingly popular, which currently includes fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, this particular group of scientists want to use the inside of your skull as a log-in key (AP)

This may sound bizarre but this is what exactly a scientists in Germany are trying to do to make security better.

With biometric technology becoming increasingly popular, which currently includes fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, this particular group of scientists want to use the inside of your skull as a log-in key.

The scientists used a setup called, which is basically a modified Google Glass headset that is used to play sound not within the human hearing spectrum, but can be picked up by the device's microphone. As this sound is played through the bone-conducting speaker, it produces an audio signature as it passes through the human skull.

(AP)

(AP)

As the inside of everyone's head is unique, so is the final sound produced, and as a result, the test device was able to correctly identify the user 97% of the time when trialled by researchers from the University of Stuttgart, Saarland University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics.

The researchers initial aim was to create a system that could lock a device when picked up by unauthorised users, but it has since been suggested that this audio signature could have the same unique value as a fingerprint, and as such prove to be a valuable and viable option for digital security in the future.

(AP)

(AP)

The technology is very much still in the development phase, with that identification rate still too low for many security experts to consider it viable yet, while the implementation within Google Glass is also up for debate given the headsets's inability to penetrate the consumer market yet.

Google halted sales of Glass in January 2015 but insisted the device was not dead, with new versions believed to be currently in development.