IBM has filed a dozen patent applications for a sophisticated approach to airport security.

"The technology has the potential to apply profiling of passengers, based on attributes such as age and type of clothing worn," writes InformationWeek's Alexander Wolfe.

"The objective of the technology in the passel of patent applications is to alert officials to potential terminal and tarmac threats using a network of video, motion, chemical, and biometric sensors arrayed throughout the airport," Wolfe writes. "The sensors feed into a grid of networked computers, which provide high-powered processing to get results to officials in so-called real time, yet the systems are compact enough to be located on-site."

Click here to read the InformationWeek article.