The Illustrated Man: How LED Tattoos Could Change The Face of Humanity

[The Straight Story]

The Illustrated Man: How LED Tattoos Could Change The Face of Humanity


In Ray Bradbury’s book, The Illustrated Man, the man of the title is covered with moving, shifting tattoos. If you look at them, they will tell you a story.

New LED tattoos from the University of Pennsylvania could make the Illustrated Man real (minus the creepy stories, of course). Researchers there are developing silk and silicon implantable devices which sit under the skin like a tattoo. Already implanted into mice, these tattoos could carry LEDs, turning the wearer’s skin into a screen.

The silk substrate onto which the chips are mounted eventually dissolve away inside the body, leaving just the electronics behind. The silicon chips are around the length of a small grain of rice — about one millimeter, and just 250 nanometers thick, and the sheet of silk will keep them in place, moulding to the shape of the skin when saline is added.

These displays could be hooked up to any kind of electronic device, also inside the body. Medical uses are being explored, from blood-sugar sensors that show their readouts on the skin itself to neurodevices that tie into the body’s nervous system — hooking chip to particular nerves to control a prosthetic hand, for example.

Chips are already used inside bodies, most notably the tiny RFID tags injected into pets. But the flexible nature of these “tattooed” circuits means they can move elastically with the body, sitting in places that a rigid circuit board couldn’t. The first displays are sure to be primitive but likely very useful for the patients that receive them — you won’t be getting the full-color, hi-res images that come with ink, but functional displays. This doesn’t mean that the commercial and artistic possibilities are being ignored. Philips, the electronics giant, is exploring some rather sexual uses:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/the-illustrated-man-how-led-tattoos-could-change-the-face-of-humanity/

[arcadian]

1. Yeah, I'm sure THAT doesn't cause cancer.

[EOTE]

5. Why would they?

LEDs emit little to no radiation. And so far, foreign devices inserted subcutaneously haven't been shown to cause cancer. I don't know why this would be any different.

[MineralMan]

10. I can't see why it would cause cancer any more than implanted

devices like pacemakers and drug delivery pumps do. That side of the technology is pretty well understood. There are a number of non-reactive substances that could be used as a protective membrane over the implanted circuitry.

Given the penchant for body decorations, I expect that such stuff will be available soon. Perhaps not in the US, but certainly in other countries which are a bit more tolerant of odd ideas.

Watch for folks getting these implants on a trip to Europe or Asia. They'll come back with them and you'll see them in clubs, for sure.

[arcadian]

19. I was pretty much joking around.

Don't some breast implants cause cancer and there was the problem with that one IUD.

[SPedigrees]

36. The breast implants leaked silicone and the early IUDs shifted

I think, perhaps perferating tissue if I recall correctly.

[Vincardog]

22. The RID chips implanted in Dogs are associated with cancer. Unlike pacemakers and drug delivery pump

they are made to transmit RF waves.

[MineralMan]

24. I don't believe RF waves are involved in LED displays.

[arcadian]

28. Are you a proponent of the Singularity per chance?

Just curious.

[MineralMan]

34. I had to look that one up. No, not me.

I'm quite happy with my current biological state, although a certain entropy has definitely crept into my life since I've reached my mid-60s. That, however, is compensated for by a very active memory of interesting times past.

However, I tend to celebrate novelty, particularly to the extent that it enables human expression. That's why I was an early adopter of things like the internet, etc. Very early, actually. Being a geezer doesn't dim my interests.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

46. RFID chips in pets are passive.

They only transmit while being scanned externally.

Also- radio waves don't cause cancer.

[Vincardog]

57. check out this 'Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors'

washingtonpost.com
NEWS | POLITICS | OPINIONS | BUSINESS | LOCAL | SPORTS | ARTS & LIVING | GOING OUT GUIDE | JOBS | CARS | REAL ESTATE |SHOPPING
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By TODD LEWAN
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 8, 2007; 2:04 PM

-- When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

[ddeclue]

2. Talk about a ridiculous waste of money and technology..

:eyes:

[The Straight Story]

3. Think about the political advertising you could do with your body

:rofl:

[Johonny]

6. doesn't sound like a waste of money to me

Medical uses are being explored, from blood-sugar sensors that show their readouts on the skin itself to neurodevices that tie into the body’s nervous system

sounds like it has uses.

[MineralMan]

11. How so? Suppose a diabetic could glance at the inside of

his or her wrist and read their exact blood sugar levels 24/7. It would be a boon to diabetics, who must monitor their blood sugar frequently. Or, an implant that shows blood pressure and pulse numbers for someone who must monitor that.

As for the recreational uses of the technology, they would serve to drive costs down through volume of production. I can see it coming, and before you know it.

[mike_c]

4. LOL-- the OP ends with a cliff hanger that virtually guarantees click thrus....

:rofl:

Nicely done!

[The Straight Story]

7. I copied up to the actual video

it happens :)

[MineralMan]

8. Be sure to click the link and view the video

from Phillips. Interesting that a company would generate such a video. There certainly seems to be interest in this process, and Phillips could implement this technology quite easily. I expect to see such tattoos on real people before long.

[Echo In Light]

9. Ha...I'm covered in tatts...but this - no way

[MineralMan]

14. Oh, I don't know...

Imagine a small (8mm) array of LEDs that would change in intensity or color and display a little pattern, depending on some body chemistry parameter. Put that under the skin of your face on your cheekbone as a sort of beauty mark.

I can imagine a lot of people who might want such a thing. Small, subtle, unobtrusive, but reflective of mood, current level of some hormone or some other parameter. Oh, yes, I can see such a thing becoming quite popular among the clubsters and the like.

There would be a ready market for something like this and, perhaps, larger displays that communicated something. A 21st century mood ring, of sorts.

[Echo In Light]

18. "21st Century mood ring!" ...got a good chuckle outta me w/that one

Back around 83, 84 I'd be-friended a lesbian in high school (outcasts usually have a way of finding each other) who wore a full blown, bad-ass mohawk ... and in this rural neck o the woods, that was automatic grounds for strident ostracization, or worse. And I was a longhair, still am, and so from that point on was very open minded re people's often bizarre, in my estimation, choices for how they present their physical selves. Guess if I can get used to seeing kids today walking around w/a row of shower curtain rings dangling from their eyebrows, this new trend will barely register a bleep on my radar.

[MineralMan]

21. Yah, young folks do interesting things, don't they?

I like that, especially now that I'm a decrepit old geezer.

[Echo In Light]

25. Geezer Butler

(Black Sabbath bassist)

[MineralMan]

29. Well, there is that. There seems to be a

resurgence of geriatric rockers these days. Perhaps I gave up playing sax in bands at too young an age. Minneapolis is a major venue for geriatric rock bands. Tickets are too damned expensive, though, and their groupies aren't so young and tender any more. I think I'll just spin up an album or two and stay home.

[Echo In Light]

31. Yeah, Witchcraft, from Sweden, was the last show I went to - and I used to play in bar bands

Nowadays, w/having a family, I don't venture out as often

[MineralMan]

55. That brings to mind a story...

A few years ago, I started noticing this guy who frequently seemed to be in the small post office I used to send packages from my business. He always seemed to wear shorts, which displayed the tattoos on his calves. On one calf, was a large line of very well-done Gothic-style text, reading "Deeds of Flesh."

We had never spoken to each other, but he seemed a friendly-enough guy. One day, I googled the phrase, just out of idle curiosity.

Turns out it's the name of a Death Metal band that has a website. Sure enough, there was the guy's photo...apparently the main guy in the band. Now this was a small town, and I found it interesting that there was a Death Metal band in the town. I had never seen any announcement that they were performing.

On the website, there was a schedule of their European tour, which was beginning in a couple of days from the time I did the search. Sure enough, I didn't see the guy for about a month. The next time I saw him, though, I asked, "How did the tour go?"

He was dumbfounded, but we had an interesting conversation about his band and the tour. For a Death Metal band leader he was a very soft-spoken guy. They lived in the town, but never performed anywhere nearby. Until I explained, he couldn't figure out how I knew about it. Tattoos.

[Echo In Light]

58. Oh yeah, there's an entire sub-sub culture of us weirdo metalhead types

I still play (drums) with various other musicians every weekend, w/o exception (luckily my wife, whom I've been w/since 88, is totally cool about that aspect of my life, and realizes that as hippy metalhead types go, I'm definitely a "lifer" lol) but we've all long attained Basement Dweller status ...although one incantation my eventually get us back into the bars on occasion to blow the wax from people's ears. Our daughter wants to pick up guitar or bass so she can, as she's suggested, go along w/me when I venture out to this guy's house way out in the hinterlands where we all jam ...auh-huh, well, she's got several more yrs of living and learning before we cross that bridge.

See, some people can more or less be fuck-ups, at least by mainstream standards, and not give a shit - that's me. In fact there's times I have fun w/it to keep would be dickheads and rude ME FIRST! types at bay as I'm out n about in town. But I'd rather she played it closer, avoid the drugs, at least to a better degree than I did while growing up, and find something she's really passionate about, get the proper schooling/training, and rock n roll that way, if possible. But my wife and I will support her choices either way, so if she decides to quit high school, as I did, and forge her own way in the common ways people do, so be it. So long is the love is always there - and out little family is fortunate to have that in spades - than things have a way of working out. Well, nuffa my ramblin'.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. Runway lights for the landing strip.

:evilgrin:

[Echo In Light]

13. ZOING!

[MineralMan]

16. That, too, of course.

"You are cleared for landing," triggered by arousal state. Interesting.

The appeal will be to the young and adventurous, no doubt, and it will be singularly unappealing to boring old farts.

[sinkingfeeling]

15. That is beyond gross.

[MineralMan]

17. Really? Could you elaborate on your thinking?

Why gross, any more than any other form of body decoration?

[sinkingfeeling]

20. Hate to tell you, but normal tattoos gross me out. I just think they're creepy. I'm not

sure why, but tattoos just don't do it for me.

[MineralMan]

23. Well, then you'll be glad to know that nobody will force you

to have one of these implants, just like they don't force you to have a tattoo. I don't have any tattoos, either, but I'm always interested in seeing what others do. Human behavior is always interesting, and tattoos are not among the things I consider to be gross. Just individual.

What do I consider to be gross? Oh, butt cracks and B.O. emerging from sleeveless t-shirts on hairy obese men. Now that's gross.

A tattoo? Not so much.

[ret5hd]

26. I've always felt that tattoos are just one more way...

for the police to identify me if i'm hiding from them.

[Echo In Light]

30. If they really want ya, an absence of ink likely won't be your saving grace

[MineralMan]

35. Never having had a reason to hide from the police,

I guess I can't identify.

[SPedigrees]

38. You could do that in reverse. Create a tattoo with sharpie markers, hold up a bank,

go home and scrub off the tattoo.

[laughingliberal]

49. Genius!

I see real possibilities with this! Police would forever be looking for the guy with "Mom" tattooed on his arm.

:rofl:

[SPedigrees]

59. I posted the idea hypothetically, of course! nt

[laughingliberal]

66. Of course!

;)

[Echo In Light]

27. Ancient Ink: The History of Tattoos

http://media.www.wccvoice.com/media/storage/paper1168/news/2007/04/09/InsideWcc/Ancient.Ink.The.History.Of.Tattoos-2835723.shtml

Thanks to carbon-dating, a process that determines the age of a corpse, scientists discovered that this frozen, tattooed man was approximately 5,200 years old.

[wtmusic]

32. Some see tattoos as individual, others as conformity

Obese, hairy men can always take a shower and buy a new pair of trousers, if they're moved to.

[Echo In Light]

37. Mine are unique to me, but certainly don't 'make' me an individual

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkOc-B64dY

[MineralMan]

40. Yes. That video is very instructive. Danny DeVito is

a more accomplished actor than is widely recognized. Of course, he had a wonderful piece of dialog to work with there.

[Echo In Light]

44. I happened to catch it by accident many yrs ago, and it just floored me

... saw it while I was experiencing the exact sort of religious/spiritual/existential dilemma that the movie speaks to, yet involved someone whom I cared for, but they were quite inexperienced w/many things about living.

However, another fave, although not quite as heavy, Danny DeVito flick:

[wtmusic]

54. Thanks for sharing that.

Wow. I will have to rent that film now.

[MineralMan]

39. Very interesting. Conformity, eh?

Well, I have a suggestion for you: Go to a place where lots of youngish people are displaying a good deal of their skin. Do a count of how many have tattoos and come up with a percentage. I think you'll find that it's a relatively small percentage.

Then, catalog the locations and designs of some of the tattoos you see. I think you'll find little duplication.

I've always found tattoos to be rather unique to the individual sporting them. Even when they appear in a fairly common location, such as the small of the back, the designs generally reflect something about the individual's personality.

I tend to ask about people's tattoos, when it's appropriate to do so. I hear some very interesting stories when I do that, and it has never seemed to offend someone.

The first time I did that was when I was about 24 years old and had just returned to college in 1970, after a stint in the USAF. I was in the college snack bar. Across from me was a young woman, who had a very well-done bumblebee tattoo on her upper arm. Being single at the time, and finding this young woman not unattractive, I asked her about the tattoo. She told me how and where and why she had gotten it. Not long after that, I got a guided tour of her other tattoos. Most interesting, I have to say. These days, as a married old geezer, I don't get the guided tours, but the stories about the normally-visible tats are still interesting. My wife indulges my curiosity and, for her 50th birthday, got a cute little blue dolphin tattooed on the outside of her left wrist. It has a story, too.

So, I have to say that I find your declaration of conformity to be very puzzling.

[wtmusic]

42. It depends on the crowd

thus, conformity.

Not at all interested in why someone has drawn a picture of something on their skin, whatever it is. Usually the reason is far more superficial than the tattoo itself.

I guess we're different that way.

[MineralMan]

45. Hmm...

Being uninterested in why people do things is a sure way to not find out what makes them unique, it seems to me. I wonder how many people you've asked about their tattoos to come up with the statement that you made about the reason being superficial.

The two statements, wtmusic, are contradictory.

[wtmusic]

52. Whenever I did ask people

I would get two types of answers, one involved some kind of personal significance, the other was because they just liked the way it looked.

Re: the first, although we all have backstories, I could never understand the motive behind creating a permanent drawing of it on your skin.

And though I understand the second, I wouldn't be any more interested in the reason why they wore their hair a certain way.

[Echo In Light]

47. Tatts can serve to mark the passage of time and experience - they're life-long

... but yeah, I know what you're getting at re motive ... some of mine have very personal and spiritual meaning, as where other times not. The last one I had done was a dragon on my chest, and it has zero personal meaning, really, other than that I thought it was a dandy idea :evilgrin:

Within this mass society, this corporate, consumer culture, people invariably embrace one commodity or another and apply their own subjective meaning/value to it ...and many then enjoy pointing fingers at one another for doing basically, at a fundamental level, sans the particular window dressing, the same things depending upon the accepted, collective interpretation of...ya know, whatever that thing is, if ya follow

[MineralMan]

53. "I thought it was a dandy idea..."

Well, at least you had an idea. Sadly, many folks don't seem to do that very often.

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

This week is our fourth quarter 2009 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
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[MineralMan]

41. Grovelbot's loyalties are tattooed on his chest.

Give generously!

[MattBaggins]

43. Now I can finally look like Brad Pitt

[Xithras]

48. Woohoo! Animated tramp stamps!

j/k. I have no problem with people decorating their body any way they want. Your body is your temple, and you may paint it any color that pleases you.

Actually, in many way this has a HUGE advantage over traditional tats. Because it's LED based, it can be turned OFF.

[librechik]

50. Finally--a wrist watch I can't lose!

[dysfunctional press]

51. "playing adult movie clips on your partner’s back will be appealing to some..."

well, it beats than taping a centerfold to it.

and- it could be another way for prostitutes to make money- pay-per-view.

[comrade snarky]

56. That's cool for stuff like medical alerts

Or diagnostics for people who need regular checks and I guess I could use a small flashlight on the end of one finger but meh...

Call me when I can have shifting bands of color like a cuttle fish. That I'd get!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXwXo3t3Cw

[Skidmore]

60. Now why would anyone agree to be implanted with this

technology?

[The Straight Story]

61. Because they like art?(nt)

[Skidmore]

62. Art or fads?

The herd mentality of the human species never ceases to amaze me.

[MineralMan]

63. Yeah, it's a bitch fer shure...

I mean, what kind of folks come to internet forums and post lots of stuff...just following the crowd and that?

It's always interesting when people accuse one group of following fads, while they're just following some other fad. So, some people will see this technology and embrace it, if only temporarily. Just like some people saw the technology that enables this forum and embraced it.

Is one group less into conformity than the other? I don't think so. Just sayin...

[The Straight Story]

64. Tattoos are not fads, have been around for a long time

This is just an evolution of them.

They were, and still are, considered by many as a form of art.

This is just another tool for a well known art form (and no, I don't have any).

[goodboy]

65. They're not tattoos they're SKIN ILLUSTRATIONS, don't you ever call 'em tattoos! (nt)

[a la izquierda]

67. I like my regular tattoos, thanks

I'm well on my way to sleeves on both arms and legs. I'll be covered by the time I'm old.

Interesting concept, though.

[galledgoblin]

68. that is so cool!

I want one...

[Soylent Brice]

69. where do i sign up?

[leeroysphitz]

70. In B4 mark of the beast...

[immoderate]

71. Why I don't read science fiction anymore...

Most of the things I used marvel at in science fiction, from space travel, to hand-held communicators, to singing birthday cards, are no longer fiction.

In Asimov's "Lucky Starr" series, written for adolescents, the hero has a "badge" in the palm of his hand, which appears when he wills it. At least that's roughly how I remember it. It's been a long time.

--imm

[Norrin Radd]

72. Scary transhumanism stuff. I suppose they are saying tribal tats

aren't considered tacky in the future, as well?