How do we make passwords better? Stronger? Google has built rings that can be used to log in to a computer or an online account. In a research, the company plans to put an end to passwords in an academic paper published online in January.

Of course, this means you'll have to carry something physical with you for this to work. The effort - plug in a small USB key that provides credentials to a computer. The paper mentioned a possibility of using jewelry too.

Mayank Upadhyay, a principal engineer at Google spoke at the RSA security conference last month, and said that using personal hardware to log in would remove the dangers of people reusing passwords or writing them down. He fashioned the idea to the use of an ATM.

Tokens used and tested by Google do not contain a static password that could be copied. And the cryptographic key is unique to the device stored inside and is never transmitted. When plugged in a machine, it will provide validity by correctly responding to a mathematical challenge posed by the online service it is being used to log in to.

What do you think? Will passwords come to this? ATM style? Do you have to carry a device with you in order to log in to your mail? Hopefully, the research bears more efficient fruit.