If some PhD students have their way, they’ll soon be a fashionable way to control your smartphone.
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Don’t worry you won’t need to look like a sailor with a blurred out anchor in forty years; rather, this temporary tattoo developed by the MIT Media Lab in conjunction with Microsoft Research called DuoSkin is removable and will also allow you to to control your computer, tablet or smartphone using NFC. And these DuoSkin tattoos aren’t just input-only. The results are lovely on-skin interfaces that can be used to control devices. With endless customization options, DuoSkin provides a great interfacing alternative for those adverse to other, more cumbersome pieces of technology – like a smartwatch. As an output interface, the tattoos are capable of bringing soft displays to the skin that can change color depending on the skin temperature.
With the “device” you could essentially carry a concert ticket or movie ticket on your skin by downloading them via NFC. “Our technical evaluation confirmed that gold skin was more durable and preferable when affixed to skin than now commodity materials during everyday wear”, reads the research paper from MIT’s Media Lab and Microsoft Research. “In our workshop evaluation, participants were able to customize their own on-skin music controllers that reflected personal aesthetics”. “These tattoos enable anyone to create interfaces directly on their skin”.
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Kao ends by suggesting they’d like to see this tech come to tattoo parlours, so it’s easy for anyone to get connected ink. DuoSkin draws from the aesthetics found in metallic jewelry-like temporary tattoos to create on-skin devices which resemble jewelry. One person that tried the app and pushed the “mood button” when they felt angry caused the other person’s flame-shape tattoo to light up.
