Former DARPA director and now Google executive Regina Dugan is pushing an edible “authentication microchip” along with an electronic tattoo that can read your mind. No this isn’t a movie script about a futuristic scientific dictatorship, it’s trendy and cool!
Dugan, who is Head of Advanced Technology at (Google-owned) Motorola, told an audience at the All Things D11 Conference that the company was working on a microchip inside a pill that users would swallow daily in order obtain the “superpower” of having their entire body act as a biological authentication system for cellphones, cars, doors and other devices.
“This pill has a small chip inside of it with a switch,” said Dugan. “It also has what amounts to an inside out potato battery. When you swallow it, the acids in your stomach serve as the electrolyte and that powers it up. And the switch goes on and off and creates an 18 bit ECG wide signal in your body and essentially your entire body becomes your authentication token.”
Dugan added that the chip had already been FDA approved and could be taken 30 times a day for someone’s entire life without effecting their health, a seemingly dubious claim. Would you swallow a Google microchip every day simply to access your cellphone?