Mike Elgan wrote an exhaustive piece full of technology day dreams for a world where we can rid the password. He talks about how Apple is presumable pursuing NFC technology and how Android is set to include it.
NFC is a word that is going to be annoying for the next few years — it stands for Near Field Communication. Basically it is like a Bluetooth/RFID system.
Google likely isn’t going to transform this — adding support for NFC in Android leaves it up to developers to implement the system, which is just asking for crap.
Apple doesn’t care to do this unless they are getting 30% of every NFC transaction. They do have incentive to use NFC to make interacting between iOS devices and Macs better.
I like Elgan’s grand thoughts, but they are all pipe dreams that are more than 5 years out (at best).