i Heart U: Apple Patents Biometric iPhone Unlock | Fast Company

Wow. I wonder if there will ever be an iDefibrillator app…

Brace yourselves for another Apple patent. It’s a weird and wacky one. It’s about using a “seamless” biometric heart rate monitor to identify iPhone users. Seriously. Your boom-tiddy-boom could unlock your iPhony-phone.

Apple’s patent couldn’t be simpler: Part of the metal shell of an iPhone (can you say iPhone 2010, anyone?) is replaced by electronic sensors that detect the pulse of the user’s heart as it reaches the hand holding the phone. Peculiarities in each user’s heart patterns at the cardiac level, transmitted through their blood vessel network, result in a signature that the iPhone can then detect and use to identify particular persons. Thus logging in to your iPhone could become as easy as just picking the damn thing up and waiting a second or two (typically about the same time it would take to press unlock and tap in a PIN number, anyway).