Motorola is sitting on the technology that could allow its phone users to forgo passwords to access their phone, and instead be identified by an electronic tattoo attached to their skin.
Speaking at the D11 conference in California, Motorola chief executive Dennis Woodside said that the tattoos have been developed by engineering firm MC10, and contain flexible electronic circuits that are attached to the wearer's skin using a rubber stamp.
Rather than enter a password, the phone would be unlocked simply by being close to the user’s body.
However, Woodside, who previously worked with Google, said that such experimental ideas were not going to be on sale soon but that Motorola had “tested it authenticating a phone, and it works.”
Meanwhile, Regina Dugan, a former head of the US Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the ‘Biostamps’ could remove the need for “irritating authentication.”
Dugan explained that authentication takes 2.3 seconds each time for existing users, some of whom log in to their phones a 100 times a day.
“Authentication is irritating,” she said. “In fact it’s so irritating only about half the people do it, despite the fact there is a lot of information about you on your smartphone, which makes you far more prone to identity theft.”
Motorola has also experimented with the Proteus Digital Health pill, a uniquely identifiable computer chip powered by a battery using the acid in a user’s stomach. The signal from the chip, which has already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, can be identified by devices outside the body, allowing for easy identification.
The comments came ahead of Motorola’s new release later this year. The Moto X will be the first phone from Motorola since its acquisition by Google in 2011.