Google Wants to Replace Your Passwords With Jewelry

As part of research into doing away with typed passwords, Google has built rings that not only adorn a finger but also can be used to log in to a computer or online account.

The search and ad company first revealed its plans to put an end to passwords in an academic paper published online in January. The effort focused on having people plug a small USB key that provides their credentials into a computer. The possibility of using special jewelry in a similar manner was mentioned in that paper.

At the RSA security conference in San Francisco last month, Mayank Upadhyay, a principal engineer at Google who specializes in security, became the first person at Google to speak in public about that research. He said that using personal hardware to log in would remove the dangers of people reusing passwords or writing them down. He also thought people would feel some familiarity with the approach. “Everyone is familiar with an ATM. What if you could use the same experience with a computer?”