The world's most prestigious technology institution, MIT, and Microsoft have offered us another reason why we are truly living in The Matrix, whether we care to admit it or not. Also, this could pass for another reason to be as imaginably lazy as possible.
The school has a group of PhD's in their Media Lab as well as scientists from Microsoft Research who have teamed up for a project to create the very first "smart"-tattoo. Artificial intelligence has been taken to the next level with DuoSkin, which is a temporary "gold-leaf" tattoo that enables a person to remotely control their smartphone with a mere index finger stroke onto their skin. It also allows a person to share data with others by simply rubbing onto the tattoo.
In a Facebook post via The Verge, you can see a demonstration of how the gold-colored tattoo is designed for skin-touch interactive technology.
According to DuoSkin's website, the process is explained:
DuoSkin is a fabrication process that enables anyone to create customized functional devices that can be attached directly on their skin. Using gold metal leaf, a material that is cheap, skin-friendly, and robust for everyday wear, we demonstrate three types of on-skin interfaces: sensing touch input, displaying output, and wireless communication. DuoSkin draws from the aesthetics found in metallic jewelry-like temporary tattoos to create on-skin devices which resemble jewelry. DuoSkin devices enable users to control their mobile devices, display information, and store information on their skin while serving as a statement of personal style. We believe that in the future, on-skin electronics will no longer be black-boxed and mystified; instead, they will converge towards the user friendliness, extensibility, and aesthetics of body decorations, forming a DuoSkin integrated to the extent that it has seemingly disappeared.
The project's researchers also detail how you can design a circuit using any graphic software, it's conductive to electricity, as well as other applications and components to make the tattoo interactive in several other ways that will basically make you feel like Magneto from X-Men.
The smart-tattoo will be introduced at a wearable symposium next month. If you get this tattoo on your forearm, it's probably best to stay inside when it's raining and when lightning strikes. That would really suck for obvious reasons.
