Will emojis futurely replace passwords / PINs ?

[jwoegerbauer]

With emoji now the fastest growing language in the UK, the British technology firm Intelligent Environments has launched the world’s first emoji-only password, which is easier to remember and mathematically more secure than traditional passwords.

Intelligent Environments’ Emoji Passcode enables consumers to log into their banks using four emoji characters, instead of traditional PINs or passwords. The characters are selected from a bank of 44. Emoji Passcode has been integrated into Intelligent Environments’ Android digital banking app.

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[Tiny]

Maybe it will if the majority take it that way.
Security wise it is more secure than 4 digit pin, so is more digits. 6, 8 or 10 (like phone number)

However I can't see their justification regarding ease of use??

This new emoji security technology is also easier to remember as² shows humans remember pictures better than words.

Memory expert Tony Buzan, and inventor of the Mind Map technique, said: “The Emoji Passcode plays to humans’ extraordinary ability to remember pictures, which is anchored in our evolutionary history. We remember more information when it’s in pictorial form, that’s why the Emoji Passcode is better than traditional PINs.”

Remembering pictures as opposed to words is not a good comparison to a 4 digit number, 4 digits is equivalent to one word.

Fact is with population growth they need to expand from the simple 4 digit PIN. so as above add more digits.

Doesn't take too much to remember a phone number of 10 digits if you want or need to; does it?

I would feel lost looking at 44 pictures & selecting the ones I need in the correct order; Untill I learn it of course, but that takes the time to learn a new 44 character alphabet!
They could use Chinese characters, now that would make it interesting.

How many people can't remember their lock screen pattern on their Smart Phone?

[ozradio]

This is an interesting concept however I personally feel it is just that, an interesting concept. For true security most high security websites such as banks etc use multi-factor authentication this way you have a username to identify you and not only do you have one factor which you have to know (password) but you have a second factor which you have to posses (OTP generator). The cost of hardware OTP tokens are reducing substantially these days with the introduction of companies such as Gemalto and YubiKey to a market which has traditionally been dominated by RSA. Personally I would feel more secure on a site where I need to enter in a passwords as well as the OTP from a hardware keyfob rather than a site where I needed to enter in 4 emoji's. In addition as people get more used to using emoji's as passwords the security of such a password will reduce substantially to the equivalent of using a 4 character alpha-numeric password, which no one in this day and age would accept as a secure password.