Sony could detect PlayStation users based on how they hold a controller

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  Some familiar controller designs show up in the patent imagery... [credit: Sony / USPTO ]

A recently approved Sony patent identifies a problem many console gamers may be able to identify with when moving between consoles: "To log in to their account a user is often required to enter a password, which may be seen by other users. Moreover, once a user has entered their password, a situation arises where the user remains logged into their account unless the user subsequently performs a log out operation, which can result in other user's [sic] potentially obtaining access to the user's profile."

Luckily, Sony's patent for an "apparatus, system, and method of authentication" also offers a solution: a new method for "determining an identity of a user holding a handheld controller" by detecting and analyzing that user's unique "manipulations of the controller."

Controller fingerprinting?

The full patent, filed by Sony in February and approved by the US Patent Office late last week (and first unearthed by SegmentNext), details how this detection system would rely on measurements of the controller's position, orientation, and the "closed or open state of a pressure sensitive switch" (i.e. pushing the controller's buttons). Analyzing how these values change over time for different users during standard gameplay can provide a unique signature, the patent suggests, which can be recognized the next time they pick up a controller.

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