saco-indonesia.com, Mengunci perangkat mobile dengan menggunakan password, sensor muka, sensor retina atau bahkan sensor sidik jari, mungkin sudah terlalu mainstream. Bagaimana dengan penguncian perangkat mobile dengan gunakan telinga?
Satu inovasi atau terobosan yang juga cukup aneh namun unik dan menarik. Sebuah perusahaan yang bernama Descartes Biometrics dari Amerika Serikat mengklaim telah berhasil kembangkan sistem keamanan perangkat mobile khususnya smartphone yang lain dari biasanya.
Sistem penguncian ini adalah dengan menggunakan telinga. Cara kerjanya pun juga tidak rumit karena pengguna perangkat mobile yang hanya perlu mendekatkan gadgetnya dengan telinga dan membiarkan proses scanning berlangsung.
Bahkan teknologi tersebut juga akan dapat mendeteksi dan scanning bentuk telinga dari beberapa angle. Pengembang teknologi yang disebut pula dengan istilah aplikasi autentifikasi biometrik ini menjelaskan, "Karena setiap telinga manusia telah memiliki bentuk yang cukup unik seperti halnya sidik jari."
Seperti halnya cara kerja di sensor sidik jari, pengguna perangkat mobile hanya perlu 'mendaftarkan' telinganya terlebih dahulu agar dapat di-scan bentuknya dan digunakan sebagai kunci paten gadget yang telah bersangkutan.
Untuk saat ini, aplikasi autentifikasi biometrik yang bernama Ergo ini hanya support dengan perangkat berbasis Android saja. Belum dapat diketahui kapan pengembangnya akan membuat versi untuk gadget lainnya.
Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake
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Many bodies prepared for cremation last week in Kathmandu were of young men from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas.Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.
Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.
“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”
Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.
