Temporary Tattoos with LED Lights
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Not too long ago, we brought you a blog about the potential next step in body modification: Biohacking.
In that story, we looked almost exclusively at people getting lights, magnets, and computers surgically implanted into their bodies in an effort to become real life cyborgs.
While the options available to people for taking that next step in evolution are cool, they also have a tendency to be a little more invasive than everyone might want.
For someone looking for a less painful option, there’s Biostamp. But the stamp itself is mostly about transferring data; it isn’t meant to be decorative.
If you’re looking for a tattoo that lights up, but you don’t want anyone implanting LED lights under your skin, researchers from the University of Tokyo may have an answer.
The advent of mobile phones has changed the way we communicate. While these communication tools are getting smaller and smaller, they are still discrete devices that we have to carry with us. – Takao Someya
Temporary LED Tattoos
Takao Someya and Tomoyuki Yokota at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering have developed a flexible, OLED-embedded electronic skin.
The ability to put microchips on the skin isn’t new; the Biostamp does exactly that, but Someya and Yokota’s advancements would allow for the OLEDs to remain in place for even longer.
The skin uses multiple layers of a flexible material that can bend, pull, and flex with your natural skin comfortably. And then on the outside, a protective film can be used to withstand the normal damage done to the technology by oxygen and water vapor.
The overall effect is that the tattoo should be able to last and to function at a higher level for longer than something like the Biostamp can.
Potential Uses
For now, the potential uses for this technology is being reserved for the medical community.
Where the Biostamp is capable of recording data and transmitting it to a smartphone or other receiver, the OLED display could show that data directly on the wearer’s skin.
Making use of sensors applied to a patient’s fingertips, the device could monitor vital signs and then display the readings in a simple digital display on the patient’s hand or forearm.
But that isn’t to discredit the purely aesthetic applications. Tattoos that light up would be just as possible with this technology as cutting edge medical information.
And Someya has even grander ideas for it.
What would the world be like if we had displays that could adhere to our bodies and even show our emotions or level of stress or unease. In addition to not having to carry a device with us at all times, they might enhance the way we interact with those around us or add a whole new dimension to how we communicate.
I don’t know if I’m interested in a digital display of my thoughts and emotions while I’m at work, but you can’t deny the idea of all these different applications is fascinating.
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