The future as I see it

Feb 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Lou Fiore

Much press and airtime have been devoted in the last few months to the past century and the past millennium. Understandably, I have seen very little about what the future might hold, but I can dream of what we may see in the area of security systems.

Security systems today, as I see them, are somewhat invasive to our lives. We must remember to do something to activate, deactivate or be recognized by a system. It is the area where I believe technology, especially forms of biometrics, will have its greatest impact.

Those of us who remember the oil shortages in the 1970s might also remember that the thinking back then was that in the future, we would all be shopping by telephone. The storefront retailer was declared dead. The "Yellow Pages" was proposed as the answer to gas shortages. These days we are indeed buying by telephone using a modem. Here is, perhaps, proof that a technology can be functionally viable, but ahead of its time and, therefore, not financially viable. The reason is that the circumstances needed to make a technology financially viable were not present. In this example, the Internet enabled e-commerce.

We have heard a proposal to implant small chips into infants at birth. If such chips were active, serving as transponders, we could see a revolution in how systems recognize individuals.

I remember reading that a "chip" placed under the skin in one's hand could be recognized by a gun handle. The gun could only be fired when the correct person were handling it. An extension of this simple principle -with greater range- might be a security system that recognizes an individual as he or she passes through a portal, allowing access, denying access, logging the person in or out, etc. If an individual does not have such identification, then a more conventional means of recognition is still available.

Biometric systems, of the types available today, might still be around, but they are to some extent -some greater than others- invasive. For example, you must stop and present a fingerprint, or a hand, etc.

A radical thought might be to use an as-yet-untouched biometic phenomena, such as electromagnetic energy radiated from the body, especially the brain. Is it true that an individual committing a crime emits a different "signature" than an individual not doing so?

Even if these radical techniques are not employed, I believe the future security system will be simpler to operate. The residential system, for example, will have no keypad. Communication will be verbal whenever possible.

Another technologically enabled area has been the explosion of various alarm communication media in addition to conventional telephone lines. Although alternate techniques have been around since the late 1960s, circumstances have negated their rapid growth until recently. The future will see virtually all alarm communication transmitted digitally over a radio path or other high-speed data path.

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