One day we might say, "buh-bye" to the password

Don't you just hate dealing with passwords? Call them passwords, "passcodes," they're a pain in the backside. With so many websites requiring passwords these days, it's no wonder that many of us would love to pull a "Howard Beale" from the film Network, open up the windows and shout, "I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Let's face it: Passwords stink. They are hard to remember since we are required to make them tough for cyber thieves to get into our sites. Passwords are nearly impossible to recover when they are forgotten. They're difficult to store in a convenient place when we need a place to locate them.

For years there have been all types of way individuals and companies have been dealing with the password issue. From creating "tough to break" passwords to consistently changing them, businesses and citizens of the world have been doing everything they could to protect themselves from cyber thieves. Scores of programs have been out there to help you create secure passwords to even storing them in a secure online database. Some methods have worked better than others, but to be quite honest, the use of the passwords has become dated. Further, experts say that password usage is at the root of our cyber mishaps.

Luckily there are smart folks out there ready to put an end to this "cyber chaos."  At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, developers were showing off their latest inventions to replace passwords such as a biometric scanner on the mobile phone. The biometric scanner uses facial recognition - or "selfies" that could be used in place of passwords to get into one's favorite sites. "'Selfies' to get into a Web site? That's insane!" one might say. Actually, "selfies" might be more secure in addition to being more efficient than password usage.  Cyber developers say that the facial recognition software can detect unique qualities in one's iris. According to software experts, everyone has a unique iris thus making it tough for a lookalike or twin from getting into one's account.

Apparently folks who are trying out facial recognition in place of passwords are impressed. Nice cyber development, right? No more usernames, long passwords, using upper case/lower case letter, numbers and phrases to remember when a lockout occurs. The elimination of passwords from our lives may save us time, energy and aggravation... until the next new "must-have" comes along.