Some time back, you might have heard about Tattio, which is a gold leaf, on-skin technology and NFC tags experimentation by MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Research. Presently, a PhD student at MIT by the name Cindy Kao Hsin-Lin is back working on DuoSkin, which is a more refined and reworked version of technology temp tattoos.
DouSkin is not an on-stick wearable, but a fabricated process of making tattoos. This process is supposed to be cheap to allow many people to get these tats. Before, the team had said around $1.50 for every tat. In addition, it is amazingly easy to set up and in the near future parlors providing tattoos services could start offering services for connected removable tattoos that can last for a day.
This means that you could be in a position to come up with a temp tattoo of your own using software. You could then put your new design through some vinyl cutter, bring some electronics and the gold leaf onboard. In addition, just like Tattio, the new DuoSkin system makes use of a gold leaf for the purposes of decoration. Moreover, the gold leaf is used as a conductive coil to connect to NFC tags and allow for communication.
All these technology features mean that it is possible to make use of the skin-on technology as a digital identification for the purposes of authentication. Similarly, the skin-on technology could be used in payments. However, the on-skin controls remains to be the most thrilling feature. This feature allows you to control all your devices. Additionally, the capacitive touchpad is in a position to differentiate between horizontal and vertical traces. These abilities allow people wearing it to comfortably make use of their skins as a slider, button or trackpad for wearables, smartphones, PCs and whatever they like.
The output idea has also been enhanced making the new tech surprisingly better. This is evident from the color changing images of pigment thermo-chromic temp tattoos released by the team. The colors are able to change between varieties of two different color options when the temperature of the body increases through the available resistive heating sensors. Moreover, there are other images reviling that the LEDs, which have been embedded would look pretty cool.
MIT believes that in the near future, the on-skin electronics will stop being mystified and black-boxed and starts focusing more on extensibility, body decorations and user friendliness. The team is expected to bring forward its findings during the Wearable Computers International Symposium, which will be held in Heidelburg, Germany starting from September 12 2016.
According to Kao, temporary tattoos that resemble metallic jewelry have increased in popularity and this has provided an opportunity for the creation of a wearable that is in a position to blend with the current fashion and provide useful and genuine abilities at the same time. She added that, back in Taiwan, they have a big culture of street fashion and cosmetics that is accessible and affordable enough. Additionally, Taiwan’s big culture of street fashion and cosmetics allows for editing and appearance changing whenever need be. This is the same thing the DuoSkin team was hoping to achieve with their tattoo technology twist.
For this reason, the system is specially crafted to allow for fast and easy set up, fairly inexpensive and accessible by anyone. The team worked alongside the Microsoft Research division to create around 4 patterns for a variety of 4 uses. They developed a simple button that allows for single clicks, slider for a single scroll, another slider for continuous scrolling and a lattice-shaped complex trackpad. According to Kao, the DuoSkin targets anyone and some graphic design software such as paint or something that can design the circuit is the only requirement.
You could get an aesthetic and fully functional tattoo the next time you visit a tattoo parlor. This is due to the emergence of a new product that has been developed from a partnership between MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Research known as DuoSkin. The product is able to convert temporary tats into some interconnected interfaces allowing them to act as inputs for computers or smartphones. Outputs are displayed based on body temperature changes. Additionally, the interconnected interfaces allow for easy and reliable data transmission to other gadgets through NFC.
DuoSkin Turns Temporary Tattoos into on-skin Interfaces
Conclusion
The DuoSkin technology is exciting and researchers want it provided in tattoo parlors so that anyone can get connected. This wearable tech will be a great alternative to watches among other pieces of wearable techs. Customers who don’t like wearing watches will have something else to try. According to Kao, the tattoo based interfaces are not meant to last a lifetime, but they will not wash off in a single night either.
