Smile! Air Force Wants to Track You Forever With a Single Camera Click http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/smile-air-force-wants-to-track-you-forever-with-a-single-camera-click/

Don’t bother with the iris scanner or the fingerprinting machine. Leave the satellite-enabled locators and tell-tale scents back on the base, military manhunters. If an Air Force plan works out as planned, all you’ll need to track your prey is a single camera, snapping a few seconds of footage from far, far away. Huntsville, Alabama’s Photon-X, Inc. recently received an Air Force contract to develop such a camera. With one snap, the company claims,

its sensor can build a three-dimensional image of a person’s face: the cornerstone of a distinctive “bio-signature” that can be used to track that person anywhere. With a few frames more, the device can capture that face’s unique facial muscle motions, and turn those movements into a “behaviormetric” profile that’s even more accurate.“The proposed work will help identify non-cooperative dismounts using remote sensors, from standoff distances that were previously impossible,”

reports Toyon Research Corporation, which also got an Air Force grant for bio-signature development. “This identity information can help intelligence analysts connect specific people to events and locations, and learn about insurgent operations.”But the combo won’t just help flesh-and-blood airmen keep tabs on their fellow humans, Photon-X adds. It “can help Humanoid Robots navigate and find objects in a cluttered room.”