(Image Source: ZDNet)

BY CHARLIE MCKEAGUE

You might have a high tech device in your pocket - but how about on your arm?  A breakthrough in biology and technology comes to life in a new device that sticks to your skin.

“Researchers have come up with this thin device that attaches to your skin.  They say it stretches and bends, and its kind of like a temporary tattoo. … The big advantage is that it is much more comfortable than the equipment hospitals use right now.  And you can start seeing electronic skin being used early next year.”

It’s like the Matrix - but for real.  The sticky new device has implications in the medical field and according to researchers its potential for integrating computers into the human body could be huge.

The studies coauthor John Rogers believes… “...creative folks out there will think of things we haven’t even contemplated...”

And a nanoengineer at Princeton University says, “This goes beyond Dick Tracy calling someone with a cell phone on the wrist. It’s having the wrist itself house the device so it’s always with you.” (Science News)

The new smart skin or tattoo as some are calling it - isn’t a one trick pony – according to several reports the capabilities are mind-blowing.  Here are a few - courtesy of CNET.

“…the team was able to demonstrate its invention across a wide range of components, including LEDs, transistors, wireless antennas, sensors, and conductive coils and solar cells for power.”

Its long been said - one day humans will carry chips inside their bodies, but with this new tech we may not even need to enter the body. Here is what the researchers themselves concluded in their summary. Courtesy of the Science Journal...

“The materials and mechanics ideas presented here enable intimate, mechanically “invisible,” tight and reliable attachment of high-performance electronic functionality with the surface of the skin in ways that bypass limitations of previous approaches. Many of the EES concepts are fully compatible with small-scale integrated circuits that can be released from ultrathin-body silicon-on-wafer substrates.”

Newsy doesn’t have a smart skin - but we do have a new update for our iPhone app.  Be sure to check that out in the app store.