Thursday, May 08, 2008

Digital Tattoo Interface


I'm no Luddite. Really truly I'm not, but his is just fucking yucky.
Her cell phone is ringing, but the display is turned off. She lightly pushes a small dot on the skin on her left forearm to suddenly reveal a two by four inch tattoo with the image of the cell phone's digital display, directly in the skin of her arm. She answers the call by pushing a tattooed button on her arm. While she's talking, the tattoo comes to life as a digital video of the caller. When she finishes, the tattoo disappears.

This Bluetooth device is permanently implanted beneath the skin. It is flat, flexible, silicon and silicone. Tightly rolled when it's inserted through a small incision, and then unfurled beneath the skin, it lies benignly between skin and muscle.

Through the same incision, two small tubes are attached from the implanted device to an artery and a vein. A coin sized blood fuel cell in the implant converts the blood's glucose and oxygen from the artery to the electricity required to power the device. Used blood returns through to the vein. The digital device's power source is the same as for all of the biological components in the body.

The surface of the implant that faces the underside of the skin is covered with a matrix of field producing pixels that activate a matching matrix of pixels tattooed onto the surface of the skin above the implant. The field penetrates the skin to drive the tattooed display, while the skin continues to provide its function of sealing the body from the world. The surface of the implant is also a touch screen control, pressed through the skin. Rather than ink, tiny clusters of microscopic spheres are injected, like tattoo ink, into the skin. Each sphere is filled with a field sensitive material that changes from clear to black when a field in the matrix is turned on.

Note: Headline links to source.

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