Russian ATM Knows When You Lie

This Russian ATM knows pravda when it hears it; it has built-in voice-analysis software to tell whether or not you are lying. It also scans your passport, records fingerprints and takes a three-dimensional scan for face recognition.


(Russian ATM, the KGB's new best friend)

Dmitri V. Dyrmovsky, director of the center’s Moscow offices, said the new system was designed in part by sampling Russian law enforcement databases of recorded voices of people found to be lying during police interrogations.

The big bank involved, Sberbank, whose majority owner is the Russian government, said it intended to install the new machines in malls and bank branches around the country eventually, but had not yet scheduled the rollout. Technology consultants say the machines, if they go into commercial use, would be the banking world’s first use of voice analysis in A.T.M.’s.

While Sberbank’s technology might strike Westerners as too intrusive, many Russians already assume the government can watch or listen to them when it chooses to. Sberbank executives said the new A.T.M.’s would adhere to Russian privacy laws.

I usually reference HAL 9000 from Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey for machines that are sensitive to human emotional states; HAL could tell from 'voice harmonics'.

However, I think I'll also mention the ATM with an attitude from William Gibson's 1999 novel All Tomorrow's Parties:

"Identify yourself, please." Lucky Dragon ATMs all had this same voice, a weird, uptight, strangled little castrato voice … probably kept people from standing around, [talking] with it… If you seriously tried to dick with one, drive a crowbar into the money slot, say, the thing would mist you and itself down with water and then electrify itself.
(Read more about the Lucky Dragon ATM)

Via NYTimes.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/8/2011)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion (Back On) ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")

Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'- David Brin, 1990.

Peel And Stick Thin Film Solar Cells
'It turns sunlight into electricity, just like any solar power converter, but you spray it on.'- Larry Niven, 1995.

Microbattery Extreme High Performance
'To this Foyle affixed a power pack the size of a pea and switched it on.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.

Speeding Ticket Robots To Cite Autonomous Cars?
'There is no danger of a vehicle's speed exceeding that allowed in the section in which it happens to be...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

 

Current News

Sweat Be Gone! Non-Wetting Fabric
'The skin-contact layer is porous.'

German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Not a deficit, but a strength.

NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni?

Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'

'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'

MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'

TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach.

Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'

CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'

Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'

Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices.

The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'

Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'

Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'

Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed!

Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.