A YouTuber under the name “Sufficiently Advanced” has developed something like a real-life version of Thor’s hammer using a fingerprint sensor and an electromagnet.
Called Mjölnir, the fictional hammer wielded by Marvel superhero Thor is meant to be so heavy that only the divinely ordained – ie. Thor – can pick it up. Sufficiently Advanced has mimicked such a weapon with his homemade hammer, which uses a powerful electromagnet to make it seem as heavy as Mjölnir when it’s on a metal surface. And by preregistering his fingerprint on its built-in fingerprint scanner, Sufficiently Advanced made himself its Thor, programming the device to shut off its electromagnet when his finger is on the scanner.
It’s a clever demonstration of the some of the fun that can be had with fingerprint-based biometric scanners, and it also helps to illustrate how commonplace such technology is becoming, given that the materials used were so readily available. A lot of the credit for that goes to Apple, whose Touch ID system, which is now standard on all new mobile Apple devices, has helped to make smartphone fingerprint scanners more or less standard features. Microsoft is further pushing such technology into the mainstream with the multi-modal biometric capabilities of Windows 10’s Windows Hello security platform; and as more everyday devices go online via the growing Internet of Things, we could see this technology wind up in all kinds of everyday products – though maybe not hammers.
Source: The Guardian
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