TatTube

November 21, 2009 4:17 AM

New technology might let you implant LED tattoos which would turn your skin into a screen.
posted by twoleftfeet (41 comments total)

The tattoos were definitely cool, but two thoughts struck me while watching the video:

1- How creepy the squishy noises were accompanying the spread of the tattoos.

2- How large the fight must have been about the Phillips logo. I bet management really wanted the logo to be incorporated into the tattoo on the guy.
posted by digsrus at 4:51 AM on November 21, 2009

Just what we need: naked baristas at Starbucks with the coffee of the day scrolling across their chests.
posted by bwg at 5:04 AM on November 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

Why can't I ever be the one to get rich off of idiots?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 5:20 AM on November 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

I remember reading about people "selling their skin for adspace" in Ellis' Transmetropolitan years ago, and thinking it was one of the wilder bits. Wow.
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:30 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

How does this effect my Snuggie?
posted by zylocomotion at 5:36 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ellis' Transmetropolitan

This article in Wired compares it to Bradbury's Illustrated Man.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:38 AM on November 21, 2009

Wow! The dystopian future is Now!
posted by deliquescent at 5:50 AM on November 21, 2009

The possibilities are mind-boggling...You could get a tattoo of Calvin peeing on the Windows logo where the pee actually moves.
posted by PlusDistance at 5:57 AM on November 21, 2009 [6 favorites]

One of the things I wrote, once when I was younger, in an otherwise terrible short story, was the idea that someone could have a very small digital implant in their inner wrist that would eliminate the need for watches. Every few years, I'll hear something like this and think we're getting closer than ever to that happening. Which would be awesome.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:03 AM on November 21, 2009

The first customer will be Liu Bolin.
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:04 AM on November 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Burning Man will never be the same.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:06 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I remember reading about people "selling their skin for adspace" in Ellis' Transmetropolitan

Derail: fuck, that was an awesome book, if it's the one I'm thinking of.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:17 AM on November 21, 2009

Provided it didn't leave nasty scars or had any other debilitating side effects, I'd love to have a watch "in me". It would be quite interesting to see how they fix the alarm option ;) A shot of adrenaline to get you up in the mornings, maybe?
posted by flippant at 6:29 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Just what we need: naked baristas at Starbucks with the coffee of the day scrolling across their chests.

Your needs are clearly so different from mine that I don't even know where to start...
posted by DreamerFi at 6:30 AM on November 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

This is like flash tattoos in the YA book series "Uglies" Pretties" and "Specials"
posted by cccorlew at 7:03 AM on November 21, 2009

a new type of super-thin silicon transistor that can be embedded on a dissolvable silk-based film

Is that even a tattoo, technically? It sounds like you're just grafting a kind of screen onto your skin. And that it wouldn't be as permanent as injected ink.

(Which leads to the question of upgrades. If you're one of the first to run out and get iTat 1.0, what do you do when the iTat Touch comes out?)
posted by PlusDistance at 7:40 AM on November 21, 2009

Sign me up immediately. I will have a pod of dolphins jumping through my hair and coursing over my body in no time.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:44 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

The idea seems pretty cool but seriously Philips, wtf is with the naked semi copulating people with tattoo sneaking out from under their fingertips? Why not just have vitruvian man standing there with various tattoos snaking around his body. Much clearer to understand and it doesn't leave me feeling like I just watched an Austrian art house porno.
posted by msbutah at 8:52 AM on November 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

I was very disappointed that the video did not have cylon-like glowing backs.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:57 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I couldn't even finish the video...especially after I turned on the sound. I mean it's like they took the idea behind that Microsoft commercial with that super pale lady and thought, "If one super pale person is awesome, just think how crazy two will be?! And hey! Let's have them in an awkward pose like their having sex!"

I bet a psychological experiment could be designed around that thing.


With regard to the technology, its interesting, but also creepy.
posted by Atreides at 9:04 AM on November 21, 2009

A few weeks before her murder in front of an apartment, a woman with an Italian name ordered a dress from him, made of a fabric created by Doctor Manhattan that used two pressure and heat-sensitive liquids suspended between two layers of latex to create black-on-white shifting color patterns, "always changing, never mixing into grey".
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 AM on November 21, 2009

Meh. End result will be people's seizure inducing myspace pages translated to their backs.

The interesting thing there was on the sidebar. Some sort of performance art piece based on Neuromancer featuring Sasha Grey as Molly. WTF? I can't decide if I hate this or love it.
posted by Babblesort at 9:36 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is perfect! Now I can have my flashing lights penis. With the proper sound effects, it will be a 'cash cab' moment for the ladies.
posted by found missing at 9:40 AM on November 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

With his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he stared through the glass at a flat lozenge of vatgrown flesh that lay on a carved pedestal of imitation jade. The color of its skin reminded him of Zone's whores; it was tattooed with a luminous digital display wired to a subcutaneous chip. Why bother with the surgery, he found himself thinking, while sweat coursed down his ribs, when you could just carry the thing around in your pocket?
posted by griphus at 9:54 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Now you can REALLY get the thing that makes the joke about "SWAN" and "SASKATCHEWAN" possible!
posted by Drasher at 10:03 AM on November 21, 2009

"You can’t have my tattoo until you take it from my cold, dead hands..."
posted by LeLiLo at 10:06 AM on November 21, 2009

Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.

HAY GUYS AM I DOING THIS RITE?
posted by elizardbits at 10:07 AM on November 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

...made of a fabric created by Doctor Manhattan that used two pressure and heat-sensitive liquids suspended between two layers of latex...

This reminded me to google "working Rorschach mask" which turned up this interesting thread on gamergirls.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:38 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

PlusDistance: "The possibilities are mind-boggling...You could get a tattoo of Calvin peeing on the Windows logo where the pee actually moves."

Ever since I made this recursive Calvin I have wanted it as a tattoo.
posted by idiopath at 12:09 PM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

funny, I declared that shark jumped back in in 2007 as there was a rash of ads using that post-effect around at the time and I made that particular Philips ad the one that broke the camels back. The Philips ad is a bit like those AT&T "you will" ones. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not.
posted by dabitch at 2:07 PM on November 21, 2009

Wait, that was unclear, I declared the post-production trickery old hat back then, not the idea of "TatTube"
posted by dabitch at 2:08 PM on November 21, 2009

As a diabetic, I'm not sure I can think of anything LESS sexy than essentially creating a giant neon blinking sign on my flesh saying "HERE IS MY CURRENT BLOOD SUGAR READING."
posted by ilana at 2:17 PM on November 21, 2009

Now you can REALLY get the thing that makes the joke about "SWAN" and "SASKATCHEWAN" possible!

My sixth grade memory of that joke is that the tat went from "TINY" to "COPYRIGHT TINY'S TATTOO PARLOR, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA"
posted by HeroZero at 2:19 PM on November 21, 2009

My sixth grade memory of that joke is that the tat went from "TINY" to "COPYRIGHT TINY'S TATTOO PARLOR, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA"

"Wendy" -> "Welcome to Jamaica mon, have a nice day"
posted by idiopath at 2:33 PM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of the tattoos in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies.

I don't care for tattoos, but I'd go for it if I could make them appear/disappear seemingly at will - just like in the Philips video.
posted by Xere at 2:40 PM on November 21, 2009

I would so love me a basic implant watch. Just four markers for the 12-3-6-9 positions and hour and minute hands. Though a binary would be simpler and only needs 10 LEDs.
posted by Mitheral at 12:35 AM on November 22, 2009

Your needs are clearly so different from mine that I don't even know where to start...

So, you want to see the moobs of a 400-pound man named Walter?
posted by bwg at 12:50 AM on November 22, 2009

Man, I love my tattoos, but this would be so badass. ZOMG. WANT.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:20 AM on November 22, 2009

I like it. So in foreplay it acts as a power gauge (a mana bar?)?
posted by tybeet at 6:56 AM on November 22, 2009

How long until they combine it with optical camouflage? SLYT demo
posted by tvjunkie at 11:57 AM on November 22, 2009

I want ones on my knuckles that are tied to my emotional state; when I'm happy, it glows a faint blue and says "Whoo" or "Yay!" or something, and when I get angry it turns to a bright red and yellow and says "Hate" and "Kill".

This would be useful in meetings at work.
posted by quin at 12:45 PM on November 23, 2009