DuoSkin: Smart Tattoo that can control your phone

DuoSkin, a smart tattoo, is now a real thing brought to life by a collaboration of a group of Ph.D. Students from MIT and researchers from Microsoft Research. Well, this new innovation can be considered as the future of wearable as it is capable of controlling a smartphone, displaying different colors and can communicate with NFC-enabled devices.

Smart Tattoo: What we know so far

The technology as described on MIT's website is called the DuoSkin. According to the researchers, this temporary smart tattoo can be made by designing the circuit using any graphic software. Then the tattoo is stamped on a gold leaf (which is widely available and conducts electricity). And hence, other commodity materials and components need to make tattoo interactive are then applied.

The smart tattoo so made can be used in three different ways: Input Device:

DuoSkin can be designed to be used as an on-skin interface for controlling your phone or similar electronic devices. Such design can be used as a trackpad for the mobile devices.

Output Device:

Another design option of using DuoSkin is to use it as a color changing display for your tech-based tattoo that changes color as per your body temperature.

Communication Device:

This smart tattoo can be also be used to exchange data wirelessly. For wireless exchange of data, NFC tags have to be attached alongside the data. This technology can be used to unlock NFC-based door locks by placing your smart tattoo near the lock.

Verdict:

It is from such research, tech industry gets to see something new and amazing. So as a research and its result, this DuoSkin is something impressive. That said, we can't assure its commercialization. It is still far away from being an applicable commercial product. But once its potentials are explored, this innovation might turn out to be a revolution in the wearable industry. Lastly, DuoSkin has already found a way of going commercial as a Digital Skin Jewelry which is a color changing one. Therefore, this innovation has some potentials but will it get properly explored or not is something we have to wait to see.