What sounds like a gadget out of the new Bond movie is actually very much reality: Apparently Stefan Savage, a UC San Diego computer science professor, developed this software that can clone your average house keys from pictures.
House keys can be cloned from photos taken on normal mobile phones, and even from shots taken over distances of hundreds of feet.
The images are scanned by a digital imaging programme that copies the exact contours of a key to create working duplicates, no matter the angle or distance at which the photos were taken.
Although the software has been developed by university researchers who have pledged not to release the code, they warned that it would not be difficult for technology-savvy criminal gangs to make similar applications.
I would expect that this is to never ever hit the shops. What would stop anyone from snapping pictures of say your neighbours and have a wander round their house? Amazing technology but certainly shouldn’t be sold!
(picture: Engadget)