Entering a password is so irritating and clumsy that only about half of smartphone owners set up lock screens on their phones, notes Regina Dugan, the former DARPA chief now heading bleeding-edge research at Motorola.
Not only is entering a password a pain on mobile, it also frustrates physicians and health care personnel when it comes to EMRs on the desk and tablet PC.
What might be better? Passwords that emanate out of your body after being embedded with a tattoo or swallowed via an electronic pill.
Enter the flexible, stretchable MC10 I, a company that makes “stretchable circuits” that can be used for skullcaps to detect concussions in sports, or baby thermometers that constantly track an infant’s vitals. In the form of a temporary tattoo, the technology can attach an antenna and sensors directly on the body.
Proteus Digital Health that already has FDA clearance for an ingestible sensor as a medical device.
These early devices are temporary tattoos, however technically there would be nothing preventing a more permanent device into the skin.
But the question is, would people actually do this? How odd would it be to swallow a pill or glue something to your arm to avoid entering a password or pulling out a key? Would you?
The general public would most likely rebel having this done to them, as a threat to individual liberty and just one more step for ‘big brother’. However in select professions this would be adopted quickly.
Busy professionals complain about logging on and off many times during the day, slowed down by this process it leads to fatigue, and often times they will neglect signing off when called away for an urgent or emergency matter. Screen savers currently automatically log off users if there is no activity for a predetermined amount of time.
It eliminates the ‘forgotten password’ or the routine of changing a password every 30-90 days.
Proteus Digital Health that already has FDA clearance for an ingestible sensor as a medical device. The chip can be used for passwords, too.
“This pill has a small chip inside of it, with a switch. It also has what amounts to an inside-out potato battery,” she said. “When you swallow it, the acids in your stomach serve as the electrolyte, and they power it up and the switch goes on and off and it creates an 18-bit ECG-like signal in your body. Essentially, your entire body becomes your authentication token.” it would be medically safe to ingest 30 of these pills every day for the rest of your life, and that the only thing the pill exposes about its swallower is whether or not it has been taken.
Once swallowed, “it means that arms are like wires, hands are like alligator clips — when I touch my phone, my computer, my door, my car, I’m authenticated in. It’s my first super power. I want that.”
Most social media sites use passwords, email, and almost every application, desktop, tablet or smartphone as wall
The general public would most likely rebel having this done to them, as a threat to individual liberty and just one more step for ‘big brother’. However in select professions this would be adopted quickly.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
But the question is, would people actually do this? How odd would it be to swallow a pill or glue something to your arm to avoid entering a password or pulling out a key? Would you?
Yes, I would. (but then again I am a physician and can’t remember all my passwords, so I use Last Pass, which for me works well .
