Fujitsu Laboratories has announced a new technology that could help spot and nab a potential terrorist even before he/she acts. While its basic purpose is to track health of an individual in real time via facial imaging, its application is far wider. The technology in question detects a person's pulse by measuring variations in the brightness of his/her face which is said to be linked to the a person's blood flow. It is based on the principle that haemoglobin in blood absorbs green light and the increase and decrease of the green light component reflected from the person's face is used to detect a pulse.

The irrelevant data is removed from the captured visual data and the analysis is claimed to yield the intended result. The company states that it doesn't require any special hardware to get data, as even simple cameras built into smartphones, security cameras, or even PCs can get the work done. The good thing is that the results can be retrieved in as little as 5 seconds. The speed of analysis and result combined with the possibility of using existing hardware, expands the possibility of it to being put in use to monitor sensitive locations for suspicious individuals.

We think that the use of biometrics to spot terrorists is certainly more feasible than the fantastic concept of harnessing precognitive ability of humans as seen in the sci-fi flick Minority Report. What do you think?

TAGS: Fujitsu, Gizmos