Android By Russell Holly Jul. 1, 2014 9:32 am
Motorola’s latest attempt at making the lockscreen less obnoxious is a temporary tattoo that places an NFC chip as close to your skin as possible.
Passwords suck. Specifically, passwords on mobile devices. The constant battle between easy access and secure use cases makes it so that, more often than not, the user is the weakest link when it comes to data security. We want to get past the lockscreen as quickly as possible, and adding a pin, pattern, or password lock creates a delay.
The Moto X deployed several techniques that attempted to decrease this delay through features such as voice control, trusted Bluetooth devices, and the NFC-based Motorola Skip service. The most recent effort, announced during the Google ATAP keynote at the recent I/O conference, takes the Skip service and makes it so your unlock mechanism is a temporary addition to your skin.
The VivaLnk stickers announced at Google I/O come in the form of a 10 pack that are available for roughly $1 per sticker. The simple instructions make it clear that the stickers are to be carefully placed on the skin and then treated exactly the same as a Skip Dot. You tap your phone to the tag, and the Motorola Skip app pairs the tag with your phone. Once paired, you can hover your phone over the tag anytime there’s a lock screen, and the phone will vibrate once to show it’s unlocked. This only works with the Moto X, because the Moto X is the only phone with NFC and the Motorola Skip service right now.
At first the tattoo is more than a little uncomfortable. You can feel it as the adhesive bonds with your skin, and depending on where you position it you’ll notice it’s there every time you move. The instructions tell you to place the sticker on your wrist, but low enough that the skin doesn’t move around much.
So far, I’ve ruined two of the tags by misplacing them on my wrist, but the third time worked much better. After about half an hour, I had forgotten that the sticker was on my body unless I was unlocking my phone. I only felt the sticker if I brushed my hand across it, and the flexible material surrounding the tag made it so there was never any tugging on my skin or anything like that.
VivaLnk claims these tags will last five days on an average person, with an understandable variance based on usage. The tag on my wrist now has survived a full night of sleep and two showers, and as far as I can tell the tag looks exactly the same as it did when I first put it on. I assume the adhesive just breaks down after four or five days, and the tag will start to fall off all by itself.
At $1 per tag, and with the understanding that one false move when applying the tag will end in starting all over again because you’ve just destroyed it, it’s safe to say that this is not something you’ll use on a day to day basis. These tags are more for special occasions where you know you’ll be somewhere that you don’t want to be seen casually entering a password or pattern, or if you’re in an environment where you want faster access to your phone, but can’t keep a Skip tag on you.
It’s worth pointing out that these tags suffer from the same flaw that the entire Motorola Skip service suffers from, which is the application of context in order to ensure it is truly serving its purpose as a faster security mechanism. The Skip tags are a useful tool for when you are out and about, but with the addition of a disabling component that is location based or dependent on your connection to a WiFi network or Bluetooth device, Skip becomes an unnecessary step when in the comfort of my own home.
The search for a seamless solution that offers ease of use with actual security continues, but the VivaLnk option is a compelling step in the right direction.
More...
Passwords suck. Specifically, passwords on mobile devices. The constant battle between easy access and secure use cases makes it so that, more often than not, the user is the weakest link when it comes to data security. We want to get past the lockscreen as quickly as possible, and adding a pin, pattern, or password lock creates a delay.
The Moto X deployed several techniques that attempted to decrease this delay through features such as voice control, trusted Bluetooth devices, and the NFC-based Motorola Skip service. The most recent effort, announced during the Google ATAP keynote at the recent I/O conference, takes the Skip service and makes it so your unlock mechanism is a temporary addition to your skin.
The VivaLnk stickers announced at Google I/O come in the form of a 10 pack that are available for roughly $1 per sticker. The simple instructions make it clear that the stickers are to be carefully placed on the skin and then treated exactly the same as a Skip Dot. You tap your phone to the tag, and the Motorola Skip app pairs the tag with your phone. Once paired, you can hover your phone over the tag anytime there’s a lock screen, and the phone will vibrate once to show it’s unlocked. This only works with the Moto X, because the Moto X is the only phone with NFC and the Motorola Skip service right now.
At first the tattoo is more than a little uncomfortable. You can feel it as the adhesive bonds with your skin, and depending on where you position it you’ll notice it’s there every time you move. The instructions tell you to place the sticker on your wrist, but low enough that the skin doesn’t move around much.
So far, I’ve ruined two of the tags by misplacing them on my wrist, but the third time worked much better. After about half an hour, I had forgotten that the sticker was on my body unless I was unlocking my phone. I only felt the sticker if I brushed my hand across it, and the flexible material surrounding the tag made it so there was never any tugging on my skin or anything like that.
VivaLnk claims these tags will last five days on an average person, with an understandable variance based on usage. The tag on my wrist now has survived a full night of sleep and two showers, and as far as I can tell the tag looks exactly the same as it did when I first put it on. I assume the adhesive just breaks down after four or five days, and the tag will start to fall off all by itself.
At $1 per tag, and with the understanding that one false move when applying the tag will end in starting all over again because you’ve just destroyed it, it’s safe to say that this is not something you’ll use on a day to day basis. These tags are more for special occasions where you know you’ll be somewhere that you don’t want to be seen casually entering a password or pattern, or if you’re in an environment where you want faster access to your phone, but can’t keep a Skip tag on you.
It’s worth pointing out that these tags suffer from the same flaw that the entire Motorola Skip service suffers from, which is the application of context in order to ensure it is truly serving its purpose as a faster security mechanism. The Skip tags are a useful tool for when you are out and about, but with the addition of a disabling component that is location based or dependent on your connection to a WiFi network or Bluetooth device, Skip becomes an unnecessary step when in the comfort of my own home.
The search for a seamless solution that offers ease of use with actual security continues, but the VivaLnk option is a compelling step in the right direction.
More...
