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For people who become stressed when asked to prove their identities by biometric scans of fingerprints, hand prints or eyeballs, Japan's Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology has developed a chair frame that authenticates merely by sitting down: a butt-scanner. Professor Shigeomi Koshimizu's device produces a map of the user's unique derriere shape, featuring 256 degrees of pressure at 360 different points and could be used not only to protect vehicles from theft, but also, when connected to a computer, to prevent log-ons by those with unauthorized posteriors. [TechCrunch blog via PhysOrg.com]