INNOVATIONS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR TOMORROW…16,17 and 18

INNOVATIONS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR TOMORROW…16,17 and 18

16. YOUR BODY, YOUR LOGIN

         A team of Dutch and Italian researchers has found that the way you move your phone to your ear  

         while answering a call is as distinct as a fingerprint. You take it up at a speed and angle that’s almost 

         impossible for others to replicate. Which makes it a more reliable password than anything you’d come

         up with yourself. (The most common iPhone password is “1234.”) Down the line, simple movements, 

         like the way you shift in your chair, might also replace passwords on your computer. It could also be

         the master key to the seven million passwords you set up all over the Internet but keep forgetting.

         Chris Wilson

17. TERRIFYING PLAYGROUNDS

Two Norwegian psychologists think that modern playgrounds are for wimps. Instead of short climbing walls, there should be towering monkey bars. Instead of plastic crawl tubes, there should be tall, steep slides. And balance beams. And rope swings. The rationale is that the more we shield children from potential scrapes and sprained ankles, the more unprepared they’ll be for real risk as adults, and the less aware they’ll be of their surroundings. Leif Kennair and Ellen Sandseter’s ideas have won the support of playground experts on both sides of the Atlantic; one company, Landscape Structures, offers a 10-foot-high climbing wall that twists like a Möbius strip. 

            Clay Risen Chris Nosenzo

 18. THE LIAR’S WORKOUT

What’s the new psychological trick for improving performance? Strategic lying. When amateur golfers were told, falsely, that a club belonged to the professional golfer Ben Curtis, they putted better than other golfers using the same club. For a study published in March, human cyclists were pitted against a computer-generated opponent moving at, supposedly, the exact speed the cyclist had achieved in an earlier time trial. In fact, the avatars were moving 2 percent faster, and the human cyclists matched them, reaching new levels of speed. Lying is obviously not a long-term strategy — once you realize what’s going on, the effects may evaporate. It works as long as your trainer can keep the secret. 

Gretchen Reynolds