The 9 craziest ways tech companies are trying to kill off passwords

Passwords are awful.They're a nightmare to remember. Everyonepicks easy-to-use passwords. They re-use the same ones over and over again, making them vulnerable to hacking.It's no surprise, then, that plenty of companies are working as hard as they can to kill them off for good.Thanks to itsinclusion in many smartphones, everyone is familiar with fingerprint readers by now. But there are plenty of far stranger possibilities for verifying your identity being experimented with ' from heart-rate monitors and vein-recognition cameras to a swallowable pill that unlocks all your devices for you.Here are nine of thecraziest methods that people have dreamed up to replace passwords....1. Heartbeat recognitionDid you know that, like fingerprints, no two people's heartbeats are quite alike'This fact means that you can actually, with the right electrocardiogram sensor (ECG), use someone's heartbeat as a kind of "signature" to verify their identity. One implementation of this idea is the Nymi Band a wearable gadget that monitors the wearer's heartbeat and uses it to authenticate them.Don't enter a password, just sit down with the band on and your computer opens right up.2. Vein recognitionSure, fingerprints are unique. But you know what else is unique' Vein patterns.In a patent application filed in 2015, Samsung suggests using the pattern of veins on the back of people's hands to identify them instead. A camera mounted in a smartwatch would map out the wearer's veins, and once confirmed as the correct person, they could do everything from buying music to logging into accounts.But there's another, less exciting possibility that Samsung suggests: Using it to identify people so they can be presented with personalised adverts.3. SelfiesThis is a more popular idea that's being experimented with by quite a few companies. The device takes a photo of your face, and using facial recognition, checks to see if you're authorised to access it.Android smartphones can be set to unlock when they recognise your face, Apple has previously been granted a patent for a similaridea, and Mastercard lets customers use facial biometrics to authenticate payments. And that's just a handful of examplesthere are plenty of others out there.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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