Billionaire Bunkers: Beyond the Panic Room, Home Security Goes Sci-Fi
November 29th, 2013Via: Forbes:
Al Corbi’s residence in the Hollywood Hills has the requisite white walls covered in artwork and picture windows offering breathtaking views of downtown Los Angeles, but it has more in common with NSA headquarters than with the other contemporary homes on the block. The Corbi family doesn’t need keys (thanks to biometric recognition software), doesn’t fear earthquakes (thanks to steel-reinforced concrete caissons that burrow 30 feet into the private hilltop) and sleeps easily inside a 2,500-square-foot home within a home: a ballistics-proof panic suite that Corbi refers to as a “safe core.”
Paranoid? Perhaps. But also increasingly commonplace. Futuristic security technologies–many developed for the military but sounding as though they came straight from James Bond’s Q–have made their way into the home, available to deep-pocketed owners whose peace of mind comes from knowing that their sensors can detect and adjust for, say, a person lurking in the bushes a half-mile away.
“If you saw this stuff in a movie you would think it is all made up,” says Corbi, whose fortress-like abode doubles as the demonstration house for his firm, Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments (SAFE).
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Biometric technologies are becoming more prevalent, too. Moving beyond a fingerprint scan, some programs don’t require a homeowner to touch anything at all. Former Israeli major general Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, onetime head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, has spent the past three years with his company, FST21, creating a software product that merges facial, voice and behavioral recognition technology into a keyless entry system. “It transforms you into the key for your building in under two seconds,” he says.
“… creating a software product that merges facial, voice and behavioral recognition technology into a keyless entry system.”
I’ve read about these before, but always wondered how it would work if, say, you’ve sustained facial injuries from an assault or car accident (bad guys rammed your car), and you’re limping and desperately trying to get into your safe home quickly, voice shaky and high-pitched due to adrenalin surges. No entry at the worst possible time for you.