With mobile technology trending towards more wearable devices, it’s no surprise that one of the latest developments involves the skin.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab has collaborated with Microsoft Research to develop a method to connect people to their mobile phones with temporary tattoos that allow them to create interfaces directly on their skin.

The technology, DuoSkin, is a fabrication process that enables anyone to create customised functional devices that can be attached directly to their skin, according to the MIT Media Lab.

With this new technology, the connection to the device will be embedded on the skin in the form of a temporary tattoo. It uses gold metal leaf, which is traditionally used on frame for paintings and chocolate decoration. The material is cheap, skin-friendly, and robust for everyday wear.

In a video interview with MIT Media Lab, Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, a PhD Student at MIT, said the materials used for the tattoo reflect a metallic look.

“We draw a lot from the usability and also the aesthetics of metallic temporary tattoos into the design of our on-skin interfaces,” Kao told MIT Media Lab.

“I think there is no fashion statement greater than being able to change how your skin looks,” she added.

How it works

Kao explained that in order to make the temporary metallic tattoo, users can design a circuit using computer graphics software (eg Microsoft Paint) and then cut the traces onto tattoo paper using a cheap vinyl cutter. After that, the gold leaf is layered on and an electronic connection mounted. The DuoSkin device is then applied to the skin through water-transfer like any other temporary tattoo.

The smart tattoo creates a circuit allowing the wearer to perform functions using bluetooth technology.

Once connected, it can be used as a trackpad to remotely control your smartphone or tablet by moving the virtual cursor on the device, store data and send commands to other devices.

With this technology, there are three classes of on-skin user interfaces. Kao explained that “the first class is input devices to turn your skin into a trackpad, or controller to adjust your music player.

“The second class is output displays. For example a rose on your skin that would change colour based on your body temperature or a fire that would light up to show emotion. The third class is communication devices such as NFC (near field communication) tags so you can read data directly off your skin”.

And, for the aesthetics-driven individual, Kao added: “We can even enhance the aesthetics of existing metallic temporary tattoos by embedding LEDs.”

There is no doubt that the way in which we interact with our devices has changed. We have moved from the physical keyboard to touchscreen technology and now, there is even more focus on better connecting people with their devices.

While people may shy away from trying out the tattoos at first, the developers believe that in the future, on-skin electronics will no longer be black-boxed and mystified.

“Instead, they will converge towards the user-friendliness, extensibility, and aesthetics of body decorations, forming a DuoSkin integrated to the extent that it has seemingly disappeared,” MIT Media Lab stated on its website.

Kao believes that the tattoos “will become an extension of yourself”.