When are we, as a society, going to solve the password problem? Passwords are a terrible mechanism for solving security - to make them "secure" you have to enf

When are we, as a society, going to solve the password problem? Passwords are a terrible mechanism for solving security - to make them "secure" you have to enforce stringent policies creating passwords that are not memorable to many users, leading to passwords being written down. Add in the fun of needed to know far too many passwords (my daily count is at 17...). Honestly I don't know enough about cryptography or security in general, but could an application be locked down using a public/private key (ala, SSH)? I'd love the ability to generate my own key (with my own password) and assign it to any application.