[url]http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-1017119.html[/url]

Airline security takes a 'smart seat'

By Rupert Goodwins
ZDNet (UK)
June 13, 2003, 11:37 AM PT

Future hijackers may find that their buttocks betray them, if UK defense firm Qinetiq has its way.

The company has developed a smart chair stashed with "a thicket of seat sensors", according to New Scientist magazine this week. The same seats could also be used to warn cabin staff of illness among the passengers, potentially alleviating the risk of deep vein thrombosis or DVT.

The seat monitors the way the incumbent shifts their weight, producing an indication of whether the occupier is asleep, jumpy or otherwise not conforming to expected normal lower-torso motions.

The system's designer, Chris Thorpe, says the system's display could be out of sight to the passengers--in the crew galley, for example. The seat itself will not make a fundamental assessment of the mental or physical state of its load but will merely point out the discrepancies, leaving it to the cabin staff to work out whether 45B is jumpy because they're scared of flying or because they're planning to take over the plane.

Future additions may include temperature and moisture sensors to increase the accuracy of remote diagnosis of problems, and as part of a drive to make the aircraft's environment react intelligently to the needs of the passenger.

Sensor seats are already in use in the automotive industry, where stress gauges buried in the seat measure the weight of the passenger. A computer can decide whether to deploy an airbag in an accident, helping avoid the situation where children are injured more by the airbag going off than the impact itself.

The same technology is also being investigated as part of General Motor's Advanced Automatic Crash Notification system (AACN), due to be rolled out in the United States later this year. This contacts a central service by cellular phone immediately a car detects that it's crashed: the seat sensors may be used to add more information about the number and type of occupants.

Similar technology is also predicted to be a major part of domestic health services in the next ten years, with Intel predicting earlier this year that automated monitoring at home--including motion detection and weight change measuring--will become an essential part of geriatric care, to relieve the stress on health services coping with an aging population.

Does this system interface with the implanted tracking chip in your neck?

The sensors would tell them I was probably a terrorist because I am scared shitless of flying.  I am all over that seat from the moment the taxi starts to the moment the wheels touch the ground.  I got yelled at last time I flew because I had to take a squirt the whole flight but held it till we touched down then got up while we were taxiing to the jetway.

So, if your butt itched you could get shot by a sky marshall?

my sig line says it all.....

just wait for the odor sensors to detect minute traces of evil chemicals..

i wonder what would happen with a really noxious fart? would they consider it a bio-weapon?

[size=6][red][b]It won't work[/b][/red][/size=6]

Eat a bean burrito before you get on plane and let your asshole tell them what you think about their sensors. How pathetic.

I'll be sure to drink a couple six-packs of cheap beer the night before and chow down on some tacos and chile.

I should be able to just go from seat to seat laying waste to anything underneath my rear end!

-Nick Viejo.

Can the seat cushion still be used as a floatation device???

Because if a plane I'm aboard, hurls into the ocean at a couple hundred MPH, I better feel secure that my seat cushion will protect me!!!

how about a *sensible* modification... oh, say like MORE FUCKING LEGROOM!  It's not like they can't afford to give us a little room since people are avoiding air travel anyway...

The shit of it that this idiotic crap will make them *feel* safer and distract them from taking any *real* safety measures.

ricockulous!

Will it stand up to nasty farts ???

I mean terrorists have nasty farts from eating camel meat & dates.

I read that somewhere on this site so it must be true !

If I sit on one of these and know it, I'll be wiggling my ass every which way I can think of.

I will second this call.  I am tall, my knees usually hit the seat in front of me.  You would also think they could serve a real lunch on a 3 hour flight that cost you $400 instead of a stupid bag lunch.  Instead, I am naturally active and often have both legs bouncing for no particular reason, which will make that thing light up and signal me as the possible danger source.  Great.

Funny thing about the seat pitch comments (I'm 6'4" and don't fit well in airline seats), I just heard a few weeks ago that American is REDUCING the pitch (after a huge ad campaign a couple of years ago based on INCREASING it).

Seems that with the downturn they can't afford to fly as many aircraft so they are going back to packing more people in fewer planes.

As though I needed ANOTHER reason not to fly commercial.

1984 mean anything to ya'll

This new seat will probably electrocute you if used as a floatation device.  

They can't get the video system to work correctly half the time, you really think they are going to be able to tell if you don't like flying or are a threat?  [rolleyes]