Is it just me, or is advancing technology getting a little too invasive?
Motorola has possibly devised a foolproof (or perhaps foolish) way to keep hackers from cracking your password: an electronic pill! Once swallowed, the tiny tablet will hit your gastric juices and give all your digital devices the “green light” to unlock.
To get a little more technical, the password pill contains a tiny chip. As it soaks in your digestive fluids, your stomach takes the form of an electrolyte and powers up an “18-bit, EKG-like signal from your insides,” Entrepreneur says. At this point, your own physical body becomes the “authentication token” for your smartphone, tablet, and other gadgets.
“It means that my arms are like wires, my hands are like alligator clips — when I touch my phone, my computer, my door, my car, I’m authenticated in,” said Regina Dugan, Senior Vice President of Motorola’s Special Projects team.
I bet you’re wondering if this is even safe. Well, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved Motorola’s password pill. Dugan assures us that it’s “medically safe” and can be taken up to 30 times a day — however, you only need to take it once a day.
The critical reception for Motorola’s cutting-edge edible pill is lukewarm — it’s a tough pill to swallow (pun intended) for many detractors on Twitter:
“Why would I want to take a pill that transmits anything?” one said in Entrepeneur‘s comment section. “With news about how cell phones may cause health problems as the studies are still very much in the infant stage of testing, I would guarantee that this cannot be a healthy idea. Whether or not it could be approved by the FDA would not matter to me.”
“There is a part of us that already stores passwords… its called a brain! Thanks but no thanks!”Giselle Yazye De Mello wrote.
“What happens when someone steals your pills? Now they can hack not one but all your stuff. Unless they personalize this pill and tie it to your unique gastric juices or saliva dna. Now we’re talking,” Mic Chan added.
Whether we like it nor not, electronic pills will be a part of our future. Otsuka and Novartis — two pharmaceutical titans — have already teamed up with Proteus to insert transmitters into medications to inform doctors how patients are responding to treatment.
“They’ll collect and stream real-time data like skin temperature, heart rate and who knows what else,” Entrepreneur concludes.
