Written by: NiRA
There is a group from Silicon Valley which gave a 17 year-old guy named Kai Kloepfer $50,000 to carry on his experiments with guns.
The Smart Tech Challenges Foundation which is centred in California’s tech capital, announced that it is sponsoring a young inventor who is from Colorado and is assimilating a biometric sensor into a weapon that demands a certified user’s fingerprint to release, and they also claim that the sensor is 99.99% exact with fingerprint identification even with fractional prints. 
Kai Kloepfer is a high school student from Boulder, Colorado and is Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) 2013 Grand Award winner and he is the first Benefactor of the $1 million Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge.
The foundation stated in a release that they will be awarding grants to a total of 15 inventors who are working to improve weapon safety by evolving customization features in weapons, locking devices and ammunition systems.
Kai stated:-
“It’s going to be my generation – the ones who have grown up with digital technology and electronic integration – that will lead the way in the development and adoption of smart gun technology.”
“This type of technology has previously only existed in science fiction movies. But young people are open to exploring our options as consumers and as innovators. I have real hope that we can apply biometric technology to firearms in order to reduce accidental deaths and injuries, and to prevent tragedies.”
Ron Conway is well-known Silicon Valley investor and the founding contributor to the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation; he said that it’s time for a major upgrade in gun technology.
Conway stated in an interview with the Washington Post:-
“We need the iPhone of guns”
And through the immense attention that Apple earned with their upcoming series of iPhone and Apple Watch smart technology, gun investors who wanted to push the industry in the biotech empire may get some real assistance.
Conway added:-
“The entrepreneur who does this right could be the Mark Zuckerberg of guns,”
Smart Tech announced the following info:-
“Kai is receiving the $50,000 grant to apply toward the integration of a fingerprint scanner, which can be programmed for a virtually unlimited number of users, from a plastic model of a Beretta Px4 Storm onto a live firearm. The sensor that Kai is working with boasts a 99.99% accurate fingerprint recognition rate—even with partial prints. He has already used a part of his Foundation grant to purchase a professional-grade 3D printer to create new parts for his prototype.”
Smart Tech tells that the young inventor Kai began working on his technology parts as a reaction to the shooting at the movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, the theatre is just about an hour’s drive from his residence. On September 13th Kai will be speaking at TEDx Mile High: CONVERGENCE in Denver, Colorado to discuss his advanced technological approach to weapons safety.
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Sources:
http://www.wow-24.com/En/Post/Details/99726/This-Teen%E2%80%99s-Brilliant-Invention-Could-Prevent-Accidental-Gun-Deaths
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/11/group-gives-17-year-old-50000-for-his-gun-innovations/
For the sake of argument i will grant that in theory a weapon which is usable only by its owner is a good concept. However any time you make a machine more complicated you increase its chance of failure. This may be acceptable in many cases due to the benefits but this is not one of them. Any electronic device can be disabled or hacked. Electronics are delicate and not meant for the rigors of combat. Circuit boards, processors etc all do not like being smashed around, exposed to recoil forces, static, sweat, mud, dirt, heat, water, salt, and a host of other things a carry or duty weapon will undergo in its service life. In addition the creation of technology like this can and likely will lead to the legislated requirement of its use by manufacturers. Thus increasing the cost of production and the end cost to the consumer which hurts the lowest income brackets who often live in areas where the protection is needed most. If you want a weapon to not be used by an unauthorized person there already exists a myriad of ways to prevent it. You can remove your firing pin or striker, or trigger assembly, you can store your weapon in a safe when you are sleeping, Taurus makes a key lock system built into the firearm so you can lock the trigger block on the gun, lock a weapon lock through the gun and lock the gun in the safe. Long story short the single best and most important safety tool is the one you cannot engineer. Responsibility and Vigilance. If you have a weapon and carry it then train with it, and lock it up when you are not going to have it ON your person. if that means you put a PIN safe for your handgun in your bathroom while you shower SO BE IT. Adding more components and complexity to weapons will do nothing in the long run to prevent weapons from being used in a crime or tragedy because the first time this system fails a law abiding citizen everyone will rush to disable theirs and restore original “dumb” function. Is it a decent idea in an ideal situation? Yes of course it is. But reality does not exist in the realm of idealism and neither do serious consumers of weaponry. I myself would never consider buying or advocating such a system on a weapon for the reasons listed above.
For the sake of the argument, I do agree with many of the points you are making, but… You focus completely on the weapon owner who stores his gun. What about people that carry it for their job? Assume they get into a struggle, the gun gets into the hand of their opponent who can not use it against them. To me that seems like a good thing.
Unless of course… The person who carried the gun in the first place, is an oppressing police officer on a rampage against someone who his holding – let´s say – a sandwich…
Oh shizzz, let´s strive for a world without guns, ok?
And what will happen if he needs a gun to save his life and then he snatch the gun from his opponent, then what he will do???
There is many faults in this invention…
Ermagherd cernt terk mer gern erf me, I bet you also Think electric vehicles are a bad idea and that carbies are king. This can and will save lives and this combat you talk of 100% of civilian owned guns being used for valid reasons in America don’t undergo that rigor.
You get a gun from your opponent…well, you can run now, without fear of getting shot. Is murder really the only answer we can come up with?
Yes murder is the only answer. 6.5 billion people have to die to put the world in balance.
10000000% AGREED
% does not work like that.
If you leave a gun locked in a safe, then you’ve automatically ruled out its use as protection.
Who’s going to have the time to remove a gun from a safe when a criminal breaks into your house?
The whole guns for consumers is pointless. Think about it. You have amendments that allow citizens to own firearms in case of a tyrannical government. That was a great idea a few hundred years ago. But do you really think that a few firearms are going to save you from a government with drones, missiles etc? You wouldn’t stand a chance.
America has a ridiculous amount of gun crime because you all still romanticise weapons.
the large majority of cities in America with carry and concealed carry permits and legalization have seen dramatic drops in crime
In America there are over 110 million rifles (not counting shotguns and pistols). Some claim claim a little over 54 million Americans Own those 110 million rifles. I believe it is much higher but for the sake of argument let’s go with this number. If only 3% of those 54 million decide to fight a government, any government(foreign or domestic that threatens to rights and freedoms of any and all Americans. That would mean 1.62 million with an average of 9 rifles. Do you think those 1.62 million Americans would have 9 other family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors that they trust to pick up each of those rifles. That would be over 14 million armed citizens ready to defend their loved ones, homes and country. Do you know of any country in the world (including this one) that could field an army even 1/10th that big. Perhaps China could come up with a army of 1.4 million soldiers. But that would pull every Communist soldier out of China. And perhaps they could pull together 14 million farmers and factory workers, put them in uniforms and then get them armed and equip-ted. But how would they bring them here without our government noticing and responding. Also it would leave their government defenseless against internal strife or external attack so they wouldn’t come here to attack us. So if we stay strong, vigilant and prepared we cannot fall unless we let our selves be weaken and destroyed from within.
Sorry Dusty you so got your math wrong here:
110 M rifles on 54, let’s say 55 M Americans, that’s 2 rifles per citizen.
Now I don’t see where you got that 9 rifles per head in the 3% part. each of the 3% would still hold only 2 rifles.
So in reality, that would be 3% of 55 M, 1.62 M, I trust you one that one….
times two.
3.24 M. Not 14.
I don’t even think that 3% of a city, fighting 100% of its, say, tyrannical police force, could effectively ‘overthrow a government’.
You can only create some bloodshed. Once you’re at it, overthrowing things, your local police will call in reinforcements, probably at some point even the army, and you have a number of new graves.
That’s why your gov isn’t too scared about your rifles.
In fact, you even had a government that got into power in extremely shady ways (the last Bush), and NOONE overthrew it. This government sent you to illegitimate wars, and no one overthrew it.
That’s also why openness, access to information and general freedom of speech and publication are considered a much greater danger by your government than all your rifles together.
If you report war crimes, you go to jail.
I disagree with one thing that you had said, but that is really all. Otherwise I believe you are right. With that said, “However any time you make a machine more complicated you increase its chance of failure.”, is the part that I disagree with.
“Bio-metric”Technology is much more advanced than people may think. The fact that this teenager is working with such technology is astounding, not only because the materials are NOT cheap, but also it is a very complicated technology to work with. I have to give the kid kuddos, because I know what is required to be able to understand bio-metric technology. It’s a ton of knowledge that most people have to study vigorously in..
However, back to why I disagree.. With Bio-metric Technology, we are talking about highly advanced technology, not only in the sense of battery life, which has been proven in the C3-RFID Chip battery which utilizes a self-rejuvenation fueling system. These batteries are designed and achieved through Bio-Chemical Technology. Learn more about self-sustainable batterys. Also proven by the same technology achievements such as the C3-RFID, a wireless tramitter and data storage can be reduced to the size of a small pill. Similarly, same technologies designed and developed by Science Labs across America, have developed MIME Chips for Medical Diagnostic use and monitoring as well..
All of these technologies have been used by the Government and Military in the U.S. for over a decade now and have also been used in smart-televisions, cell phones, modern game consoles, laptops, etc..
There is much more that I could explain, however, the point is.. Yes, in current consumer level technology, that is readily available to the mainstream consumer level, would typically result in complications and in turn increase the chance of failure..
So I guess you could say that I slightly disagree, not fully..
So long didnt read
so short, didn’t read
Same, I also worry about if the government decides “Civilians dont NEED guns!” and just decides to hack and shut down all of them, or somebody whos going to commit a tragedy, like a mass shooting. Also, IIRC the current smart gun design can only handle .22 LR. To say the least, I think I want a larger caliber and an un-hackable design. This design would be better known as a “BASIC” firearm. I’m too lazy to make an acronym but it’s just whatever guns we have nowadays, just saying.
i think is not that bad if u could have some control center who record the analogic pistol system
Not true, look at Aviation Warfare, we’ve upgraded it a shit ton, and now look at us. Would you rather go back or continue to improve?
a better idea would be to make possible identify the shooter so when someone gets shot evryone can be aware who shot those bullets and a better thing would be to atach a gps in the guns so if soneone shoots the weapon emmits a signal and who is shooting can be located and identifyed that way would prefent people from firing a wepon since it can be known know who shot where it hapened and when it hapened
it’s not the panacea, but it will save many toddlers. if further improved could be GPS-ed and reduce crime.
it’s a solution.
Soooo, how many “toddlers” have been killed by shooting themselves, again?
Here is the problem with bio-metric fingerprint scanning on hand guns. What they are not telling you is that if the government begins implementation of this it is very much likely that they will have a wireless gps system placed inside that will transmit your guns use and location to the NSA, showing not only that you are using the gun, but where you are located at all times any time the gun is being used…
yap, thats a good point, they are doing it through facebook also.
and we are telling them everthing through our status upload on facebook daily.
But there is another point too, if you are in danger and you somehow manage to snatch the gun of you opponent then what you will do, will you lick that gun?? because there is nothing you can do with that gun…
Hit them with it, Because they are disarmed and now panicking because you have their weapon.
Stop being fucking stupid.
Actually it would be better suited to in fact get a DNA sample of the gun holder which then submits the sample to the system. which would in fact cut down on all gun related crimes. that is of course if you can get all guns replaced.
Should be a blunt answer to why our world is like it is.
We didn’t take the time back then to consider the now and the effect of guns before we made them. Now in the now we are trying to solve a loosing battle, as you can fix it by adding the finger print scanner on it. But now comes all the illegal guns out in the hands of the true people commenting crimes with them.
In order to fix one problem you must learn to first fix everything in that problem. With a solid solution that takes years to complete, but only takes days to act in what took years to complete.
But really who would care about someone knowing the solution of many things. after all he is a nobody that didn’t even finish high school…
Shout out to Anom.
Learn what is truly right and wrong before you act. And loose the jacked mask from V for Vendetta and create your own mask. It’s so easy a 2 ND grader could do……….
Anom-
1st off its abbreviated AnoN
2nd- in the first anon organized street protest anons wore masks of all kinds to hide their identity from the scientology church who aimed to sue them and harras them at their homes. They wore masks of all kinds but as time passed the v mask became a popular one and later used as a identity because it served as a mask and a symbol. Learn about the group your bad mouthing before you do it
Psycho Pass anyone?
What happens when someone busts through your window and you dad/husband who owns the gun is not around? can you create multiple users on the gun?
This is set up by the government,this is a way to track and limit gun’s to people,this is not a thought,this is fact,this is trying to be pushed upon the public to limit,Belive what you will,but think outside of the box for one time on this one.
Also I might add,This kid got the money from D.A.R.P.A.
What if the battery dies at the worst possible moment? Will the ‘fail safe’ be in the locked or unlocked position? If it’s locked, it’s useless. If it’s unlocked, criminals will just pull the battery.
What if the battery dies? Does it fail safe in the locked position? If so it’s useless. If it fails safe in the unlocked position then disconnecting the battery would render it useless as well.
what worries me is the the copy right being sold to the wrong entities… big brother, for instance. i may be pessimistic, but who’s to say our “wonderful,” government won’t try and exploit this young man’s success? If this technology demands certain biological pieces of information, who’s to say they won’t adulterate it?
Close to what I was thinking. The idea itself it great, and of course with all great ideas it can be used properly and abused, just like anything else…
But what about EMP? And another concern, if the government or Law enforcement gain the ability to render it inert or useless, when necessary or desired? Or even worse, criminal elements….
Just something to think about…
I also want to be hacker
Guns of the Patriots ! Shut down J.W. !!!
I think this is an excellent step forward- not for the civilian market though; this should be implemented on all Police firearms and weapons, “he reached for my gun/weapon” would no longer be a viable excuse for killing a suspect. I don’t believe this technology should be forced on the civilian market though, that would only give anti-gun people another reason to ban current firearm designs and antiques. I believe this should be the next step forward for police weapons.