Google has acquired a 5-months young start-up SlickLogin – an Israel based company working on smart identification technology making use of high-frequency sound waves to streamline authentication for users.
SlickLogin’s product has not yet been released and is currently in a close beta. So, what is this anyways and what instigated Google to buy a company with an unreleased product.
According to SlickLogin, an app residing on your smartphone or tablet will pick up a nearly-silent sound played on your computer. This sound, which is inaudible to human ears, is recognised by the app and after analysis it is sent to the server of website you are trying to access, which in turn will authenticate you if the sound was tied with your account credentials.
“Google was the first company to offer 2-step verification to everyone, for free – and they’re working on some great ideas that will make the internet safer for everyone. We couldn`t be more excited to join their efforts”, reads a statement on SlickLogin’s website.
Google has been searching for alternatives to text based password for quite some time now and was the first company to release two-factor authentication for all its users. Earlier it was even rumoured that the company was working towards and busy studying possibility of securing user accounts using physical keys.
