PITTSBURGH -- High-tech security? Forget those irksome digital
eye scans. Meet the biometric shoe. A new lab is working to
perfect special shoe insoles that can help monitor access to
high-security areas, like nuclear power plants or special
military bases. The concept is based on research that shows each
person has unique feet, and ways of walking. Sensors in the bio-
soles check the pressure of feet, monitor gait, and use a
microcomputer to compare the patterns to a master file for that
person. If the patterns match, the bio-soles go to sleep. If
they don't, a wireless alarm message can go out. "It's part of a
shoe that you don't have to think about," said Marios Savvides,
head of Carnegie Mellon University's new Pedo-Biometrics Lab, in
Pittsburgh. The lab, which has $1.5 million in startup funding,
is a partnership with Autonomous ID, a Canadian company that is
relocating to several U.S. cities. Todd Gray, the company
president, said he saw the potential when his daughter was in a
maternity ward decorated w