Google is working on “smart tattoo” for the human body

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Tech giant Google has announced it is developing a smart tattoo that will turn the human body into a touchpad through embedded sensors. The “SkinMarks” project seeks to create the next generation of wearable technological devices, Google reported Monday. The project is partly funded by Google Faculty Research Awards.

The new technology aims to work through a sensor-operated tattoo applied to an area of the body. The sensors are activated through touch and swipe actions such as those carried out on a smartphone. Researchers at Saarland University in Germany said in a report that the benefit of using the skin “is tapping into the fine motor skills that human beings naturally have.”

“Interacting with your own skin and limbs also means you can do it without looking,” Google said. “You could squeeze the area around the tattoo or bend your fingers or limbs to activate the sensors.”

The tattoos are produced by screen printing conductive ink onto tattoo paper, Google reported. Examples of prototype tattoos include cartoon drawings and light up displays.

“Through a vastly reduced tattoo thickness and increased stretchability, a ‘SkinMark’ is sufficiently thin and flexible to conform to irregular geometry, like flexure lines and protruding bones,” the researchers wrote.

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