Tattoos as GadgetsIt makes you think: Is that rotating rainbow the tattoo? Or is it the RFID chip Antonellis is carrying around in his hand? Or both?
Gadgets as Tattoos
Well, remember that the future of tattoos is most likely going to be a post-ink enterprise. In some cases, ink will become ephemeral, like the data for an animated gif floating in the ether. In other cases, though, the ink is actually a gadget itself.
Take LED tattoos. Instead of ink injection, this form of tattooing involves implanting LED displays under the skin. More specifically, LED tattoos are made up of silicon electronics less than 250 nanometers thick, built onto water soluble, biocompatible silk substrates. When injected with saline, the silk substrates conform to fit the surrounding tissue and eventually dissolve completely, leaving only the silicon circuitry. The body won’t reject the electronics which can be used to power LEDs that act as photonic tattoos.
This is not science fiction. The University of Pennsylvania’s Brian Litt, a neurologist and bioengineer, is perfecting a form of this technology that could be used to build futuristic medical devices — say, a tattoo that gives diabetics information about their blood sugar level. (The idea that futuristic tattoos might serve a medical purpose sure brings us full circle back to Ötzi and his arthritis treatment, huh?)
However, the technology could also power next generation body art, like animated tattoos that make you look like a mutant. Philips imagined what that might look like in this (rather sexual) video from 2008
Until Then…
The tattoos of the future inevitably have to work with the technology of today. We’re probably a few years away from the Philips fantasy up there, but creative tattooists are figuring out ways around the limitations. Karl Marc, a tattoo artist from Paris, says he created the world’s first animated tattoo that makes use of a QR code and a smartphone. The code basically activates software on the phone that makes the tattoo move when seen through the phone’s camera. It’s legitimately cool.
Then there’s the temporary approach. Things get very tricky when you start putting foreign bodies — ink, silicon, or otherwise — into the body. But if you’re just putting the electronics on top of the skin, well, that changes the game.
Materials scientist John Rogers is doing some pretty incredible work with flexible electronics that stick to your skin like a temporary tattoo. These so-called “epidural electronics” can do anything from monitoring your body’s vital signs to alerting you when you’re starting to get a sunburn. Rogers and his company MC10 are currently trying to figure out ways to get the electronics to communicate with other devices like smartphones so that they can start building apps.
Google isn’t far behind them. This year, the company’s Motorola division patented a device that looks like a neck tattoo. Like Rogers’ technology, this device is attached directly to the skin where it picks up vibrations from the vocal cords creating a microphone with virtually no interference. It’s hard to tell if they filed the patent because they wanted to win some attention or because they actually want to build and sell the thing. But it’s still cool to imagine.
Along those lines, don’t expect to be able to walk into your local parlor and ask for a digital tattoo any time too soon. While the technology exists to make some pretty incredible stuff, it’s still very specialized and incredibly expensive. It’ll take some time for the demand to increase enough so that industry offers up the supply. Because remember: body art is a business. And businesses need incentives to change course
Sources: http://carloz.newsvine.com/_news/2014/01/11/22266010-technological-tattoos
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/01/the-freaky-bioelectric-future-of-tattoos/
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