Not long ago, Kai Kloepfer, a 19-year-old young man in the United States, developed a smart pistol with fingerprint recognition function. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article introducing the history of Kai Kloepfer's invention of a new smart gun. The following is the main content of the article.
In February this year, the 2016 International San Francisco Smart Gun Symposium was held in San Francisco, USA. This is an unusual meeting, and the participants include engineers, senior police officers, investors in Internet companies and gun technicians.
In January this year, President Obama of the United States talked about gun safety in his speech. After quoting the statistics of gun accidents, Obama asked: "If we can manufacture smart phones with fingerprint recognition function, why can't we manufacture guns with the same function?" This seminar can be said to be a response to Obama's speech.
Obama's question is also one of the sponsors of the seminar Ron Conway Conway), he is eager to find a solution to this problem. Ron Conway is the most influential angel investor in the high-tech industry, and one of the early investors of Google (Weibo), Facebook and Airbnb. Smart Technology Challenge Foundation (Smart) created by Ron Conway Tech Challenges Foundation) contributed 1.5 million dollars to support the development of gun safety technology.
At the seminar, Ron Conway announced that he had found a solution. Beside him sat an 18-year-old young man, wearing a carefully tailored suit, smiling politely and confidently. This young man is Kai Kloepfer from Colorado. "He's Mark Zuckerberg in the gun industry," said Ron Conway.
In the past four years, Kai Kloepfer has been studying pistols with fingerprint recognition function. In 2014, he was funded by the Intelligent Technology Challenge Foundation, and therefore postponed his admission to MIT. He developed a smart pistol prototype with live firing function, and three months later he founded his own company Biofire. If the prototype of the smart pistol is proved to be successful, it will become the first pistol that can be locked like the iPhone.
"Congratulations," Ron Conway said to Kai Kloepfer, "you will save America, you will save many lives."
At present, people's views on smart guns mainly depend on their confidence in new technologies. Ron Conway is fully confident about this. As an enthusiastic investor in disruptive start-ups, Ron Conway is frustrated by the proliferation of gun violence and the indifference of the gun industry to gun safety issues. "They seem to have no incentive to innovate," he said. "If gun companies do not want to innovate, we have young innovators who can undertake this task." His foundation funded 15 gun safety technology inventors, Kai Kloepfer is one of the outstanding.
Ron Conway once found many young high-tech talents. "When Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker were 19 years old, I invested in Napster they founded," he said. "Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when I worked with him."
Unlike Ron Conway, the gun industry has little enthusiasm for smart guns. National Rifle Association Rifle Association (NRA) does not oppose "user authorization technology", but it does not support it. "The attempt to develop and sell smart guns has lasted for many years, but all failed." Catherine, spokeswoman of the National Rifle Association Mortensen said, "The NRA is not opposed to the development of new gun technologies; however, we are opposed to the project commissioned by the government to require the development of expensive and unreliable functions (such as fingerprint verification before the gun fires).
National Shooting Sports Foundation) General Counsel Larry Keane) said that the fate of smart guns should be determined by the market, but he has not yet seen the products he recognized. "No one has solved the technical problem of smart guns to make them more reliable than the existing technology." He said that if the iPhone misreads the user's fingerprint, it is only a temporary trouble. But a pistol is different. "If you are using a pistol to defend yourself, but your pistol is dumb, you will face death instead of temporary trouble."
As far as the current smart gun technology is concerned, Keane's view is difficult to refute. In 1999, Colt Company (Colt) produced a prototype smart gun named Z40, which can be locked. Users can only shoot with a special RF wrist strap. However, when Colt demonstrated the Z40 smart gun to reporters of the Wall Street Journal, it failed to fire. Colt abandoned the project. Smith &Wesson) once tried to develop smart guns, but abandoned the plan in 2001 after encountering a boycott. Armatix, a famous gun manufacturer Smart gun Armatix manufactured by GmbH The iP1 was launched in 2014 at a price of $1800. It needs to wear a wrist strap and a PIN code to unlock it. It takes a total of 12 seconds to complete the unlocking process. In an article, the NRA commented on the gun as follows: "It is disappointing to say well, but frightening to say poorly." Only two stores sell Armatix iP1， And it was taken off the shelf a week later.
The bad start of the smart gun makes the problem more complicated. In 2002, New Jersey passed the Children's Safe Pistol Act (Childproof Handgun Law）， The law stipulates that once the smart gun technology is approved by the Ministry of Justice, all handguns sold in the United States should be smart guns. Gun rights activists fear that the new smart gun technology will give effect to the law, threatening gun manufacturers to block research on smart gun technology. As a result, laws intended to promote the development of smart guns have hindered the development of this technology.
The cultural differences between Silicon Valley and the gun industry are understandable. However, the development of technology will enable the two sides to reach some much-needed consensus on the issue of gun safety. The Intelligent Technology Challenge Foundation claims that there are 20000 suicides, accidental gunshot wounds and deaths of young people related to improper gun keeping around the world every year. Effective smart gun technology can reduce the occurrence of these accidents. It took decades for car safety belts to be widely accepted, and new safety technologies will not be adopted overnight. As far as smart guns are concerned, political and technical challenges are enormous. However, accepting weapons with biometric technology is no more challenging than accepting driverless cars that can drive automatically in heavy rain. Moreover, the huge leap in high-tech usually does not occur within the industry.
Kai Kloepfer didn't have many opportunities to access guns in his childhood. The only thing he could remember was playing target shooting on a family holiday. Kai Kloepfer is interested in assembling circuit boards and writing software. At the age of 11, he built a small spaceship with polyester film plates and parts of a remote controlled aircraft.
On July 20, 2012, a shooting incident occurred in Aurora, Colorado, the United States. A man named James Holmes shot 82 people, killing 12 people and injuring dozens. At that time, Kai Kloepfer was still a sophomore.
The shooting tragedy prompted Kai Kloepfer to think about a question: Can guns be made safer? A month later, he turned his interest into a scientific project, just like a precocious engineer.
During the research, Kai Kloepfer realized that ID technology could not prevent the emergence of another Aurora. Like James Holmes, most shooters can legally buy guns.
Kai Kloepfer shifted his focus to the shooting accidents he could prevent. Of the 33000 shooting deaths in the United States every year, 62% are suicides. Many people - especially young people - use guns that are not their own. Criminals steal about 250000 guns every year. According to the latest statistics, 1.7 million children live in families where guns are not kept safely.
Kai Kloepfer believes that smart gun technology can reduce the occurrence of accidental shooting accidents. He designed many smart gun models. His first model was a stage prop gun with a fingerprint identifier and a circuit inside the gun handle. This design is different from the "Biometric" of his school Electrical Firearm Safety), but Kai Kloepfer exhibited this model gun at the regional exposition and continuously upgraded it. According to his estimation, he spent 1500 hours in more than 10 months making more than 140 revisions to his design. In the school class, it seems that he is taking notes in class, but in fact he is using a laptop computer for CAD modeling.
International Science in 2013 Fair), Kai The prop gun designed by Kloepfer has been upgraded to a 3D printed plastic model gun. His design won the first prize. In the summer of this year, an employee of Intel told Kai Kloepfer， The Intelligent Technology Foundation is looking for funding objects. Kai Kloepfer decided to continue studying smart guns and applied to the Smart Technology Foundation for funding.
The Intelligent Technology Foundation granted him a grant of 50000 dollars and asked him to make a budget and work plan within the specified time. Kai Kloepfer has never made a commercial budget before, and requests a one month extension. A month later, he founded his own company, Biofire.
According to Kai Kloepfer's plan, Biofire will eventually focus on designing and manufacturing innovative guns. However, his first prototype pistol that can be fired is a modified version of a Glock pistol, which was bought in the name of his mother.
From the right, Kai Kloepfer's prototype gun looks very similar to the Glock pistol. However, there is a coin sized sensor on the handlebar of the gun, and the position of this sensor is exactly where the middle finger of the gun holder is placed. The sensor is connected to the circuit board and battery, and is hidden in the gun handle. The design of this prototype gun benefits from the development of smart phones to a large extent. Its sensors, processors and high-capacity batteries are all derived from smart phone technology.
"Every electrical component we used didn't exist ten years ago," said Kai Kloepfer.
Compared with the past smart guns, the prototype gun designed by Biofire is much easier to operate. As long as you can shoot, you will If you unlock the iPhone, you can use this smart pistol without any special instructions. When you pick up the Biofire Smart Gun, it will wake up from the low-power mode and activate the microprocessor and sensor. It takes about one and a half seconds to identify your fingerprint. Kai Kloepfer said that in future software upgrades, he can reduce the fingerprint identification time to half a second. If your fingerprints match, the circuit inside the gun handle will unlock the internal trigger lock. As long as your middle finger is still on the trigger, the gun is ready to shoot.
What if your fingers are wet? The sensor can't read wet fingerprints, but you just need to dry your fingers on your pants.
What happens if you wear gloves or your hands are dirty? Biofire's model is designed for home users, and such problems are seldom encountered.
What if your spouse needs a gun? Its sensor can remember the fingerprints of up to 10 people, but it needs to add fingerprint records first and reset them.
What is its battery life? After it is fully charged (about an hour), it can last up to one year. It has a sensor inside to ensure that the gun will only consume power when picked up by the user.
Will it be hacked or controlled by the government? Its USB jack is only for charging, and can't connect to the Internet or smart phone applications, and can't be remotely controlled. This pistol is a "single purpose application". It is more like a toaster than a smartphone. Therefore, it is difficult to crack or controlled by the government.
"We will not sell a product that is less reliable than ordinary guns," said Kai Kloepfer.
Designing a prototype smart gun requires wisdom and technical expertise, but it takes money to turn a prototype gun into a real smart gun. According to Kai Kloepfer estimates that he needs about $1 million. By August this year, Kai Kloepfer has raised $125000, including Ron Conway's funding. In order to obtain more funds, Kai Kloepfer plans to find new investors and conduct investor demonstrations. For any startup, such a demonstration is risky. For smart gun start-ups, investors are looking for reasons not to invest, but not to invest. Colt's failure in smart guns has led to people's prejudice against smart guns for nearly two decades. Kai Kloepfer needs his prototype gun to successfully complete live firing without any failure.
He chose to conduct his first demonstration at Shoot Indoors, a shooting range on the outskirts of Boulder. Fortunately, the demonstration was successful. Kai Kloepfer holds the gun handle and places his middle finger on the sensor. A second or two later, his gun fired.
"Perfect," Kai Kloepfer said. There was a very happy expression on his face.
A few days later, Kai Kloepfer showed Ron Conway the prototype of the smart gun. Ron Conway decided to invest an additional 50000 dollars and promised to help him raise more funds from Silicon Valley. Ron Conway said: "He is on his way. He has shown us a prototype of a smart gun that can carry out live firing. He is a great inventor, and he is completing all the steps. It is possible. Smart guns will be mass produced."
Is the market ready to accept Biofire smart guns? This is another question. Chris Cheng, the top American shooter, said that he would not buy a smart gun himself, because Armatix has already made a bad reputation for smart guns. He said: "The concept of smart gun has not been tested and proved, and consumers need to hear positive news and endorsements."
The earliest smart guns were dumb guns, but they have been five years since now. Five years is enough time for the high-tech industry to make earth shaking changes. New technologies, such as tablets, often fail in the first place.
Three years ago, a survey funded by the gun industry showed that only 14% of gun owners would consider buying smart guns. However, technology can change consumer culture in a dramatic way. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), a survey at the beginning of this year showed that the number of gun owners who are willing to buy smart guns has reached 40%.
Kai Kloepfer said that the market for his smart gun exists in a generation like him. They live in a high-tech omnipresent world, but also live in an environment full of gun violence. When they start to buy guns, they will look for guns like smart phones.
The article is adapted from Rice Hull Net: http://it224.com/
