| |


Contact Alex Knapp
Tech 3,848 views

AT&T Will Transfer Data Through Your Bones

AT&T's Brian Amento demonstrates biacoustics with a door lock.

AT&T Labs has been working on a bioacoustic system that could allow your cell phone or other device to securely transfer data through your body – in particular, through your bones. The system has the additional benefit of being completely secure – that is, if someone else has got your phone, they won’t be able to get to that data.

“Our ultimate goal is to get data transferred securely through the bones of people allowed access to it,” Brian Amento, the head of the project told me. “We’ve gained enough interest that its worth pursuing.”

The reason why there’s interest is because AT&T has already achieved a proof of concept of their system. Using pizoelectronics – basically, just a guitar pickup – Amento’s team was able to develop a secure locking system for a door. The key system allows given access to the door for particular people, which is on the phone. But to ensure that the person holding the phone is the owner of the phone, it sends a signal through the bones of the person’s hand as they touch the doorknob. If it’s the right person, the door opens. If not, it stays locked.

You can check out a video of the technology prototype in action below:

The signal itself is sent as sound – and the vibrations travel from the phone, through the bones, and out again through the doorknob. The pizoelectrics transfer the sound into an electrical system. The reason why this ends up being a secure system, says Amento, is because from person to person, the frequency of the sound remains constant. However, the sound waves themselves become attenuated in different ways as they travel through different people. One of the next steps for the team is to determine whether the attenuation is unique enough from person to person to make for a useful security system.

Although the team is pursuing more on the door lock thanks to interest generated by the prototype, the actual goal is for other uses of interest to phones. For example, if you were at a business meeting, the acoustic system might be used to transfer data, such as contact information, with a handshake. Don’t expect to be swapping movies, though. “There’s not a lot of bandwidth,” notes Amento.

Another potential application for the bioacoustics is the ability to keep people from texting while they’re driving, while still allowing passengers to use their phones.

“The vibrations in the steering wheel are pretty unique, so we could apply the transfer so that if you’re holding the steering wheel, you can’t use your phone,” Amento said. “Though realistically, we’ll probably have to see if we can use the seat vibration, since some people would just take both hands off the wheel.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops, especially if it turns out that you can uniquely identify a person by the sound of their bones.


Post Your Comment

Please or sign up to comment.


  • How many days before someone claims this causes bone cancer?

  • It’s called bone conduction and all of us use it more than than you realize. Most of the sound you hear is acoustic vibrations transferred from your bones into your stape (inner ear bone). The stape vibrates on a membrane (like a drum) and transfers the vibration to your brain. Your brain then interprets that vibration and deciphers it. That’s how we hear and communicate. Beyond popular belief, the ear lobe is a secondary hearing mechanism.

    This systems must test for a frequency response in your bones. What’s funny is that as your diet changes, you will have to calibrate this system to identify with your new bone frequency. It’s a brilliant idea. Bravo. I hope you guys are successful.

  • And as you age? Do you get locked out of your house?

  • Mike Devlin Mike Devlin 2 years ago

    No, you just use a skeleton key. :-)

  • biga99 biga99 2 years ago

    My guess is that there are a lot of people for whom it wouldn’t work because their bone structure would change too quickly: children, those with bone conditions like osteoporosis and osteopenia, and anyone who takes Calcium or Vitamin D supplements.

  • Oliver Caver Oliver Caver 1 year ago

    How many days before someone claims this causes bone cancer? +1 to comment