Now and again you hear of a solution that seems to be struggling to find a problem. That certainly seems to be the case with a technology that’s been patented by Nokia: the vibrating tattoo that denotes incoming calls
Yes, the company has come up with an idea for apparatus including “a material attachable to skin, the material capable of detecting a magnetic field and transferring a perceivable stimulus to the skin, wherein the perceivable stimulus relates to the magnetic field.”
The patent application goes on to explain the specifics: an electronic device (such as a cellphone) sends magnetic fields to trigger vibrations in or on the body. The company is thinking this could be through a variety of apparatus such as devices attached to a fingernail or to the skin itself, but also suggests it could be under the skin via a tattoo.
This could work by using ferromagnetic ink, though to work properly this would need to be heated to demagnetize it before the tattooing, then remagnetized once in place by running a magnet over the skin. The application notes it’s even possible to trigger different levels of vibration to indicate a specific caller.
To be fair to the squeamish, Nokia also suggests the system could work just as well with a temporary sticker on the skin.
Personally I’d like to see further exploration into less invasive variations on this undoubtedly creative idea. For example, perhaps it might be possible to somehow have the phone itself vibrate when there’s a call.
im going to assume that the 2nd figure with its burly arms is a man. and why is that man wearing a belly shirt?
I don't think he's wearing a belly shirt; it's just the way the diagram shows the underside of his shirt.
This sounds… AWESOME!
A tattoo that have a use outside of looking (hopefully) awesome.
Sign me up!
If you worked in a stock exchange people would think you were having a seizure.
,,,Which is actually pretty funny, now that I think about it…
The problem with ferromagnetic ink in a tatoo is that if you ever need to get an MRI, as most people at some point do, The ink in your tatooo will be attracted to the very strong magnets used by the MRI machine. This would be extremely painful if not possibly damaging to your body / tatoo area.
thats not that true while tests with living humans have never been done with that type of ink the mythbusters tackeled that myth in season three, by tatooing a piece of pork with ferris ink and subjecting it to an MRI the ink made the MRI blury but no damage was found on the piece of pork
Now if only they could have used pain receptors to find out whether or not it would actually hurt.
Wouldn’t it be easier to put a chip on a contact lense that displayed who was calling when u received a call on ur cell… No need for silly vibrations then
Barcode tats for everyone!
Now, make the tattoo a modifiable screen, capable of displaying the hour, tasks and other simple things, and I will get it made as soon as possible.