Tattoos and Piercings Get Techy

When you think about piercings and tattoos you don’t really tend to think of something technologically advanced, but that is something that is growing in interest in recent years. There are of course a number of reasons, but the people getting piercings and tattoos have not changed a great deal, they continue to range from 17 to 28 year olds which is of course the age when technology is generally one of the most important factors within our lives. Everything uses technology now, we carry smartphones and music players everywhere we go, we use images to find websites, we search every coursework topic on Google, we connect to our friends, family and colleagues constantly through social networking.

Tattoos are becoming a popular way of performing all sorts of technical functions and while some of them aren’t exactly your traditional tattoo they still bare the name. The electronic tattoo is one fantastic example of this, it is a temporary tattoo that features electronics stuck to the skin by a transparent bandage, of course the uses for this vary depending on the way the electronics are programmed to function but there are no real limitations to it. Scientists have not made any of these commercially available as of yet and no single set use has been decided for the tattoos, but there have been a number of potential ideas.

For one it was proposed that the temporary tattoos could be used as a form of identification whereby a person’s hand could be scanned and their personal information such as name, age and even their emergency contact could be stored on the electronic tattoo. Because these are temporary it could be updated regularly and would provide a more effective and easier way of finding a person’s information. Anyone else getting flashes of various science fiction movies? Another suggested use for the tattoos doesn’t move much further away from the sci-fi; the tattoos could be used to store passwords. If you were, for example, to use a password on your smartphone this could theoretically be programmed into an electronic tattoo on your hand, so that the phone could only be operated by you. Of course part of the programming for this particular design would have to exist on the hardware side of things but it wouldn’t be too much different from when all the new laptops were being released with fingerprint recognition software.

The idea of a technological tattoo certainly isn’t limited to the idea of an electronic insert with the tattoo. No doubt you’ve seen QR codes; they are displayed at bus stops, on posters, information leaflets and all sorts of other placed and provide you with an image that links to a website. What you might not have known is that this will even work if it’s tattooed onto your skin.

A QR code tattoo works in much the same way as any other QR code, you use a smartphone to take a picture and the website is brought up, though often in the case of a tattoo QR code this is a video which animates the tattoo. The QR codes can be incorporated in tattoo designs effectively and can even be rather attractive as a part of the design if done correctly, but the best part about these tattoos is that they can change. The page the QR code links to can be changed, so as you get older, as your ideas change, as you change so can your tattoo. Whether it’s an animation or a webpage doesn’t matter; the code will link to it and provide you with whatever you want to express and unlike your traditional tattoos you can change the message that you express.

Tattoos aren’t the only things getting more advanced, piercings are becoming bigger, bolder and even more technological. One such example would be Dave Hurban from Jersey who pierced his wrist in four places with small metal studs which he used to perfectly connect his iPod to his arm – magnetically. Yes that’s right, he measured his iPod and placed the studs with the full intention of using it as a place to keep his iPod – safely secured to his wrist. With the clock background set on the iPod it can appear much like a watch, accept it isn’t – there’s no straps he can just pull it off and drop it on.

While some people look at such ideas with horror there are bound to be a few younger generation members who are looking at these ideas with wonder-filled eyes and imagining how much easier their lives would be if their iPod was connected directly to their arm.