It's not quite Deus Ex, but it's still pretty weird (or cool): a tattoo that vibrates in sync with your phone. This idea comes from a patent filed by Nokia, and recently uncovered by Unwired View.
The patent, which can be viewed in full here, describes "an apparatus comprises a material attachable to skin, the material capable of detecting a magnetic field and transferring a perceivable stimulus to the skin, wherein the perceivable stimulus relates to the magnetic field."
The patent goes on to describe the 'material' as "an image, a tattoo, a marking, a marker, a sign, a label, a symbol, a badge or any alike visible or invisible symbol." In the case of the tattoo, it's applied by basically the same process as any tattoo, only using a special type of ink that's capable of sending and receiving signals and the like. Since only the ink is different, you could still get to pick what you want it to look like.
This 'tattoo' (or whatever implementation of the patent is used) would work with various electronic devices - the patent describes pretty much every gadget you can think of - and would help the user to perform various tasks, such as "an alert of a message and incoming call, an alert of a body part in proximity of the electronic device, an alert of information shown in the electronic device, an alert of an application launch, a portion of image shown on display placed on top of magnetic surface and/or the like."
So, what's your view on such a device? Is it a little bit too creepy for your tastes, or would it just be another useful tool to let you know when your phone's ringing in a noisy environment? And what about obsolescence? Do you go and have a chunk of your skin cut and burned off every year when they come out with a cooler and more awesome device?
Image courtesy of Unwired View
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