Smart Guns
 

Do you think this is useful technology, or bowing to demands of the anti gun crowd?

Company sees light with smart gun
By Dan Mayfield
Tribune Reporter

New technology that senses subtle differences in people's skin might make an Albuquerque company a prominent player in the handgun industry.

Albuquerque's Lumidigm makes what's known as a biometric sensor. Using intense light, it can perceive who's who and lock out people who shouldn't be using a specific device, such as a handgun.

Recently, Lumidigm (pronounced Luma-Dime) signed a development agreement with firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson to design a fast, durable fool-proof sensor for a new gun, said Rick McCaskill, Lumidigm's vice president of business development.

"Of all the different systems I've seen, Lumidigm has the greatest potential," said Kevin Foley, vice president of product engineering for Smith & Wesson.

Smith & Wesson is working on designing a new type of "smart" handgun. The brains of the .40-caliber gun would allow only specific people to fire it.

"The concept at this point is to have a handgun that works only for authorized users. Ideally, six or less," Foley said.

The smart handgun has become one of the hottest topics in the gun industry in latest years. Proponents say the weapons can cut down on accidental shooting deaths.

In Albuquerque, the topic has received attention after an Albuquerque Police Department sergeant was shot with her own gun following a scuffle with a suspect earlier this month.

But opponents to the idea say smart guns have problems: The best designs are slow; they're cumbersome and can't be used in emergency situations.

They require users to enter a secret code - like at the ATM - or use special keys to unlock them.

That's where Lumidigm's sensor comes in.

Called LumiGuard, the sensor - about the size of a postage stamp - sends pulses of light into skin touching it.

Within one-third of a second, the device can rule out a person it doesn't recognize, McCaskill said.

It sounds complicated, but it really isn't, McCaskill said.

Children often put flashlights to their hands to see the deep red light shine through their palms.

It turns out that light is a slightly different color of red for everybody.

Lumidigm's sensor uses light to measure the thickness and density of the skin and its surrounding tissue and blood vessels. It works on skin from virtually any part of the body, with one hitch: The skin has to be alive

"Basically, we're measuring the difference in the structure of the skin," McCaskill said.

The brilliance of the sensor is that it's quick and uses relatively little power.

But that's not what police officers are concerned about.

"The biggest thing is the reliability," said Albuquerque police advanced training Sgt. Damon Fay. "When you need it, will it go?"

Yes, McCaskill said.

The simple light-emitting diodes LumiGuard uses are good for thousands of scans, McCaskill said. So far, the company has logged more than 6,000 scans on its test bed, and has error readings down to less than 1 percent.

The company's goal is to reduce that to less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

Lumidigm grew out of InLight Solutions, another Albuquerque company using light to measure biological signs.

About three years ago when InLight Solutions was designing its light-activated blood sugar monitoring system for diabetics, McCaskill said, the team hit a roadblock.

"There was a noise - a scattering," of the light, he said.

It hindered the blood sugar test.

But as more subjects were tested in an effort to figure out what was causing the scattering, the company discovered the scattering was unique to each person.

The company patented a sensor that measures the differences and spun out Lumidigm in 2001.

So far, Lumidigm has received $5 million in venture funding from groups such as Intel Capital. It's signed other development agreements with automotive parts supplier Visteon and lock maker Ingersoll-Rand.

McCaskill said the company sees its LumiGuard sensors finding their way into cell phones, personal data assistants or computers within three to five years.

The Smith & Wesson handgun is, at the very least, three years off, but it's promising, Foley said.

"It has the potential to be very small, very fast," he said, "and their tests show it's equal to, or better than, other biometric technologies."

http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/busi...smartgun.shtml

Thats wonderful, untill the batteries run out, or I want to let someone else use it at the range, or my girlfriend needs to use the pistol while I'm deployed...

Just punish criminals who use guns.

Yes, people absolutely NEED guns. :rolleyes:

I think it's a damn good idea. But couldn't someone just wear a glove or something? lol

I have been in many situations where I needed a gun.

If smarte guns have a .1% eror rate, that's still a chance that a cop will draw his gun and be defenseless against a criminal.

When my computer screeen turns blue and displays "fatal error." it's an inconvenience. If a police officer draws his gun and the system malfunctions, that error truly could prove to be fatal, and it's a chance that shouldn't be taken.

I argued for this type of system in a previous thread but I was speaking theoretically. I think it's an excellent implemenation of technology and am excited that they stumbled onto this so soon.

Just think of their eyes when the researchers thought their hard work was failing--only to realize they just made a technological breakthrough and were on the verge of making trillions of dollars...

We should compare that failure rate with mechanical failure rate. I'm curious just how much chance of failure is calculated for any other type of failure: ammunition issue, misfire, and etc.

Comparing a computer with a firearm combined with a hard coded microchip and LED is a very long stretch.

Edit: we use microchips in hospital equipment, military weapons and equipment, vehicles, crime detection/enforcement, prisoner detention, lungs, hearts, ears, ...and nearly every other life and death situation one could come across in modern society.

What are the psychological barriers to implement any technological innovation into private, personal firearms for safety concerns? I wonder if designs of safety levers were met with such opposition. I know of no movement to eradicate those. I wonder if, once the military implements these types of hi-tech features, people won't start snatching these things off the shelves (laser sights/lights/scopes, anyone)?

I want to be able to fire my weapon at any time and under any circumstances. I.e. right or left handed, gloved or bare, w/ or without rings/jewelry, etc. I also want the option of handing a firearms to someone as circumstances demand.

Smart guns just aren't my gag. As for prefenting 'unauthorized' use, well, that's what my safe is for.

edit: Also, I don't think the whole smart gun thing would do a thing to prevent the use of stolen guns in crimes. It would probably take about five minutes for any bad guy (or his friend who knows how) to take the gun apart and remove the 'smart part' so that it fires normally.

criminal comes in through windows you open up your bedside drawer, put on glove, then grab you pistol :D

not to likely.

Smart guns are a good idea, but they have a lot of issues that would keep me from using one for family protection.

If the batteries do run out the gun is renderd useless what good is a useless gun to you?

Your remote control uses an LED and shoots a beam acroos a room. How many times do you use the remote as opposed to how many times you will shoot a gun? Now, how many times per year do you change your remote's batteries?

Spiffy, sounds like a good piece of technology.

I vote that, instead of putting responsibility for safety in the hands of a microchip, we just educate people on the safe handling and storage of firearms.

This is like the v-chip for televisions of parents who are too irresponsible to monitor what their children watch.

This is also like the v-chip for televisions of parents who aren't too irresponsible to monitor what their children watch--yet can't monitor their children every waking moment.

The remote only fires the beam when a button is pushed. The sensor would need power all the time so it could sense the persons hand.

Now it could be said that there could be a button that also has to be pushed to activate the sensor, but now you have an additional step involved before you can pull the trigger.

In a situation where I need to act quickly, my biggest concern right now is to take the safety off first. I don't need to worry about activating a sensor and getting authorized to pull the trigger first.

Also, your remote control doesn't have to withstand the shock of, well, a pistol firing constantly. Have they developed it to the point where it is still reliable after 10,000 rounds? Do you want to be the one to find out?

Bowing to the whims of gun control types.

Say you're a cop in Chicago. It's January. Do you wear a glove that you have to strip off to fire your weapon, or do you let your hand freeze?

Say you're a cop in Las Vegas. Your weapon is in stultifying heat, then the cool of your cruiser, heat, cool, heat, cool, all day long. How long will your battery last in such conditions?

Say you're a Park Ranger in the Everglades. You fall into the swampy water while trying to rescue a hiker conrnered by a gator. You have mud all over your body and need to pull your weapon on said gator. Do you take the time to wash your shooting hand, or do you take the chance that it'll read your skin color properly?

Now, put yourself as Joe Citizen in any of those situations. Smart Guns aren't very smart at all.

That's funny, I knew better as a child than to play with my parents guns.

Look... A gun is a very simple machine. This really won't hinder anyone except those trying to lawfully use a weapon. Besides, I would rather not trust my life or the life of someone else to a computer--I love them, but they don't belong in a gun.

0% chance of no mechanical failure means no gun, that isn't really an option now is it?

As was I, it seems to have become culturally acceptable to be stupid in unecessary easily fixed ways since you can just fix it with some plastic, tape or TV and assume the parenting will come from really bad sources.

Fixing something that isn't broken. Smart guns are just that. In New Jersey it is just more unconstitutional bullshit that was implemented to do nothing but forward the 'disarmed citizens' agenda of the wacko anti-gun lobby.

Strengths:
Reliable and accurate. the rate of fire is incredable you can esaliy out shoot you hopper but with the eye's on forced shot mode you will never chop a ball. I did no modifications to this gun and right out of the box with my veiwloader 12v I was shooting at 12bps with out even thinking about it. The accuacy is far better than anything I have shot before. I have played paint ball from 1985 to 1991 on the old california team 'Black Flag' I was the co - captian then I quit playing untill 2000 when my 4 kids started playing and my old guns could not keep up I would spend half of the day maintaining them and half of the day getting my ass shot off becase I could not keep up or hit anything. With this gun I have practiced with a local novice team and I can hold my own now. I even have to hold back when I play with my Kids. I no longer have to fiddle with this gun or do anything for that matter just load it up and play all day. (now this is kinda tough because I am 40 now and the kids just out pace me even though I am in great shape)

Weaknesses:
Nothing, one note all though when I was range shooting I was breaking paint mid way in the barrel I finnaly found what was causing this my paint was to big for my stock barrel when I tested it by putting a paintbal though the barrel it would get stuck a bout halfway. then I went to a small bore paint "Chronic by Zap" the ball would roll freely out the barrel and I never againg had paint break in the barrell.
And the price if they could sell this gun at about $1000 or underI am sure it would go like hot cakes. List is $1499.00
But I found it for $1225.00 localy.

Conclusion:
What a great gun, super accurate and supper fast right out of the box you don't have to do anything to it "just Play!" I am a little puzzled why Angel owners hate Timmy's so much I know Angels are great guns But the exchange rates keep the price very high and I think the "Ironmen" Timmy is just as good and you can save som money. This gun is way efficiant on gas too I am getting 750 shots from a 3000psi 47ci tank.
SaveYour money and be patient it is worth it even if you only play once a month.
PS I think the guy that rated this a 1 made a mistake look at his comments