If you’re a fan of body-art, then you might like the idea of being able to interact with your tattoos – to the point of using your tattoos to place phone calls (even video calls). At the Greener Gadgets Design Competition, Jim Mielke demonstrated his subcutaneous (that’s “under the skin” in non-biological speak) mobile phone touchscreen display, powered by blood.
The “Digital Tattoo Interface” implant consists of a 2-inch by 4-inch matrix of “field-producing pixels” that use tattoo ink-like spheres that change from clear to black in color. With a touchscreen interface and Bluetooth connectivity, the implant can serve as a touch-sensitive mobile phone display that is even capable of displaying a 3G video call. A rolled up tube of flexible silicon is inserted underneath the skin, where it unfurls and is connected to two tubes that allow blood to flow in through an artery and flow out through a vein. Glucose and oxygen from the blood are converted to electrical energy in the fuel cell and the blood is returned to recirculate the body – so your body literally powers this device.
The concept is strictly a concept at this point with no plans for commercial production, but it sure would be cool to see this idea take hold in the near future.
[Via: PhysOrg]