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Motorola sees us wearing tattoos and popping pills instead of typing passwords in the future

Motorola is exploring the possibility of using tattoo passwords or allowing you to take a pill that will turn your whole body into an authentication token.

Talking at D11, the All Things Digital conference in California, Regina Dugan, the former DARPA head that now leads advanced research for Motorola detailed how in the future we won't just be typing in four numbers or drawing a image within nine points on a screen.

Taking about her findings from DARPA, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, Dugan showed off a tattoo authentication system that should make accessing our data safer in the future.

"Authentication is so annoying that only about half the people do it, despite the fact that is a lot of data on your smartphone that makes you far more prone to identity theft," she said. "We are thinking about a whole variety of things to make that better. "

The electronic tattoo would work by the user wearing a standard looking tattoo on their wrist.

Made by a company called MC10 and already worn by Dugan, the tattoo has an antenna and sensors embedded to talk to your phone.

Motorola says it plans to work with the company to adapt it to work with the future Motorola smartphones.

Taking it one step further, Motorola is also looking at phone users taking a tablet every day to allow you to access your computer, tablet or smartphone.

"I take a vitamin every day, why can't I take a vitamin authentication every day?" asked Dugan in the interview with journalist Walt Mossberg.

The pill has a small chip inside it that has a switch and a small potato battery that is powered by the acid in your body. When you swallow it, the electrolytes in your body power the battery, which in turn powers the switch, which in turn turns you into one big authentication token.

"Your entire body becomes an authentication token. It becomes your first superpower," said Dugan. "When I touch my phone, my computer, my door, my car I am authenticated."

The pill is already FDA approved in the US and safe, but Dugan admits that it will be some time before Motorola, and its parent company Google, will offer it as a way to password-protect your new smartphone.

"This isn't stuff that is going to ship anytime soon, but we have demoed it working. We are trying to think big again," added Dennis Woodside, the CEO of Motorola.




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