A group of PhD students from the MIT Media Lab and researchers from Microsoft Research have come up with a temporary tattoo with which you can control your smartphone.
The wearable can turn into a touchpad to remotely control your smartphone, or share data using NFC (Near Field Communication).
The technology is called DuoSkin and according to the researchers, you can design a circuit using any graphic software, stamp out the tattoo in gold leaf (which is conductive to electricity) and then apply other commodity materials and components that would make the tattoo interactive.
The paper presents three key use cases for the tattoo: you could use it to turn your skin into a trackpad, design it to change color based on temperature, or pull data from the tattoo. In one photo shared by MIT the tattoo even includes LED lights, creating a kind of glowing display on the skin.
This tattoo can simply be applied like a regular temporary tattoo by sticking it on your skin, applying a damp cloth, peeling off the tattoo paper and eventually, removing it.
The paper was published on MIT’s website and will be presented in full at a wearables symposium next month.
