Smart Tattoos: More Than A Skin Art, Great Technology Breakthrough

MIT and Microsoft collaborated in developing a new interface in the haptic technology by embedding a smart tattoo into your skin. This project is called Duo skin. This project aims to be incorporated to the wearable techs available today. The common struggles about wearable tech these days are that the touch screen is too small to perform even simplest task like navigating around the interface.

However, no one wants to have an oversized and bulky wearable. By embedding a smart tattoo on the skin, users could no longer be frustrated about the limitations of such wearable tech. The tattoo uses a gold leaf with a wide array of futuristic design to choose from. Since the tattoo uses gold, which is a relatively inert metal, users should not be worried for irritations when in contact with skin.

According to the The Verge, The use of the smart tattoo has three major functions now: temperature based color changing tattoo, communication device by storing data and a track pad input device. The problem about the technology is that it is way too expensive to produce (since its major component is gold leaf) and it still needs a device to protect it from peeling of your skin. For now, the smart tattoo is still on its prototype stage and still has a big potential for development.

A similar technology was developed back in 2010 by a computer scientist named Chris Harrison from Carnegie Mellon University called Skinput. Skinput simply converts the skin into a touch screen through a touch sensitive projector armband. This tech never made it to the market because of the poor design and the weirdness of the idea that the interface is actually projected to your skin. Also, the idea of a separate wearable device for touch purposes is redundant.

The research will be presented to International Symposium on Wearable Computers 2016 (ISWC'16) this coming September and it hopes to receive constructive feedbacks from wearable tech users.