The Future Is Personal, Pervasive, & Transparent:
So every once in awhile, we get a new piece of gadget-technology like a new iPhone or AppleWatch that moves things forward.
But they’re still just boxy-widgets that you have to lug around with you.
You can’t even use an Apple Watch without a phone, and it can’t make or receive calls by itself.
So they’re not even that independent. -Until now…
A new generation of visionaries is inventing a future where technology is something you take with you, and On you every day of your life.
Body-Art Craze Gets Some SCIENCE!s:
For example, MIT researchers are taking the gold body-sticker craze one step further and turning it into an electronic device with several components, including a Wireless Antenna, and a type of Display.
It’s still early days, so duoskin is expensive and a bit slow, taking 80 seconds to display something and then turn back to the original blank. But display will of-course improve with time.
Not Just Form, But FUNCTION!:
The other great thing about it is it can be made Conductive. So you can use it not just as a changable decoration, but also as a Controller for just about anything, like an MP3 player, for example.
Now for health applications there are probably some that can be put right on your arm, and others that should be left off.
But for example, an emergency button that travels with a patient everywhere they go instead of being fixed to one spot is a great potential application.
Also, as a sticker, it means there are fewer parts to break or lose.
Forget The Controller, What Can It SHOW Me?:
Now for the even better Display part of things. It’s researchers at The University of Tokyo’s Organic Transistor Lab who are getting that done.
-So you can say PSHAW! to the next version of the Apple Watch. (ok, maybe the 2035 version; but still…)
Right now, the sticker is a little bit big, and the display is kinda retro-70’s digital watch in it’s lack of visual sophistication.
But it’s a pretty amazing step that could give doctors, fitness freaks, and just plain-old technology-freaks some readable data right there on their person.
Why worry about where you left your e-widget or look up at a monitor for pulse, blood-pressure, or your friend’s latest hilarious tweet, when you can just check someone’s arm?
As long as the surface-area is big enough and the resolution and brightness high enough, anything you’d want to track might be put right where your watch used to go, with essentially zero physical bulk and only a very small amount of weight.
Universal Display’s PHOLED+Low Power CPUs+WiFi Tattoos=You, The Computer
Now all we need are much smaller computer processors and much more powerful batteries; -or at-least solar-cell stickers to go right on your arm next to the Sticker-Watch.
And instead of the slow-changing metals & pigments that MIT’s using right now,
An early version of a similar technology was developed by Universal Display for army testing a little while ago. It was just mounted in an arm-cuff.
And if you take that out even further to a company that could probably manufacture these things at-scale, then LG has been making Flexible OLED displays in their own research departments for at least a few years now:
-Or by contrast, this could all be seen as just another step on the road to us all wearing The Mark of The Beast, in which case, we’re even more screwed than Election 2016 would suggest…
Check out the details in the Links:
Photo/Video Credits:
“Three classes of on-skin user interfaces” photo and “DuoSkin:Functional, stylish on-skin user interfaces” video, by MIT Media Lab’s Duoskin
Digital Skin Display video posted to YouTube, by University of Tokyo, Organic Transistor Lab
“18 Inch Flexable OLED Panel” video, by LG Electronics
Links:
• Source(s): MIT Media Lab-Duoskin | Tokyo University
• via: Engadget | PopSci
• More Coverage: Tested-Universal Display PHOLED | YT-Universal Display explains PHOLED
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