US Government fights terrorists with Wii

By Tom Bramwell Published 8 October, 2009

Balance board involved in security research.

US Homeland Security is funding a new screening project that makes use of commercially available sensors to measure things like your heart rate and body temperature - and one of the components, for now at least, is a Wii balance board.

According to a CNN report (thanks Kotaku), researchers are using the balance board to observe how a person's weight shifts.

"Studies are now under way to determine whether there is a level of fidgeting that would suggest the need for secondary screening." Brilliant.

The overall technology also uses sensors for heart rate, breathing, eye movement and things like that, and is known as FAST - Future Attribute Screening Technology.

Its masters envisage it being used to speed up security screening at places like stadiums and airports.

The good news is that according to the man in charge of the project, none of this is an invasion of privacy, because we're not being asked anything, just observed from a distance. So that's alright then. Move along.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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