Google Looking At Password Pills And Tattoos

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A week after Twitter added two-factor authentication to its service if the user desires, new reports show that there are a number of engineers at Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) who must be audibly scoffing at such tame measures. When I say Google, I don’t just mean Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) but everything Google owns, in this case Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI).

Google Looking At Password Pills And Tattoos

In a recent post by AllThingsD, Brad Reed wrote that Regina Dugan, the former chief of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the current head of Motorola’s special projects division, is working on a few things that will keep those who fear Google Glass, up at night and rereading George Orwell’s 1984 while watching the film Minority Report.

“We got to do a lot of epic s#@t when I was at DARPA,” Dugan said onstage at D11. Obviously, she was conceivably a bit limited in her abilities to explain this “epic sh.t” due to intellectual property concerns as well as national security worries, but she did elaborate on a few things she’s working on with regards to “passwords.” Things that may never see the light of day, but things that she is working on nonetheless in her quest to become the real life “Q” of James Bond fame.

These “password” ideas include:

  • An  electronic tattoo made by the company MC10 that Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) has partnered with that would allow your computer to verify your identity. I for one, think her showing the one that she had on the inside of her forearm was in bad taste. The Holocaust just wasn’t that long ago for me.
  • An internal password that would allow people to ingest a pill, have it powered by stomach acid.

Google Says Not So Fast

“This isn’t stuff that is going to ship anytime soon. But it is a sign of the new boldness inside Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI),” explained Dugan’s boss, Motorola head Dennis Woodside. He also made it abundantly clear that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has no intentions to force feed or tattoo you anytime soon.

There is no question that Regina Dugan loves her job and summed up her thoughts on innovation quite succinctly, “If you want to ensure failure in your innovation, try removing the risks,” Dugan said. “Boredom is the enemy of innovation.”

 

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