nimated and programmable LED tattoos connected to your brain? You could show off your latest Flash animations, watch TV on your arm, or have a built-in PDA screen. The possibilities are endless. Perhaps more than simply a fashion statement, you could use such LED tattoos to display medical information about your body such as blood-sugar readings. A recent article in MIT Technology Review describes a new type of super-thin silicon transistor that can be embedded on a dissolvable silk-based film and can do all of that. Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, is working with researchers from Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois and Tufts University to develop medical applications for the new transistors. Their silk-silicon LEDs can act as photonic tattoos that can show blood-sugar readings, as well as arrays of conformable electrodes that might interface with the nervous system. Today, companies no less prestigious than Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands are exploring the potential for electronic tattoos as personal body adornment and self representation. Here’s a rather sensuous video from Philips that shows the human body as a platform for electronics and interactive skin technology.
