WTF: Researchers find gadgets work just as well under our skin

Researchers are currently devising a way to gauge out a bit of our arms to replace all of that unnecessary muscle and flesh with our favourite gadgets. You know, to make life that little bit easier.

A few months ago we saw that Nokia had patented a crazy vibrating tattoo that would live on our forearms. But, if you thought that sounded creepy now it seems research is underway to take things even further into the realm of a Terminator movie or a Jeffrey Dahmer murder scene, as scientists devise new ways to jam electronics under our skin.

The inventive researchers at software company Autodesk have been messing around with dead bodies and found that gadgets do indeed still work under human tissue, according to New Scientist, “a button, an LED and a touch sensor all functioned appropriately when embedded under the skin of a cadaver’s arm,” just in case you were wondering.

Now although it’s annoying when you leave your phone at home or have to runmage around in your bag to find it when it rings, are we ever really going to want it to be part of our bodies THAT much? We really hope not. Plus there are issues about whether the gadget will need to be removed often, if they’ll infect surrounding tissue oh, and the small fact you’ll be slowly turning yourself into a cyborg.

However, are we just really freaked out because it all sounds a little too sci-fi right now? Will our perceptions change soon as we start realising life would be much more fun as a Borg and less as a regular human with all of that rubbish flesh and those stupid feelings? The truth is this kind of research has been underway for years, it’s just that it all seems a little more real and terrifying now companies are starting to become interested in integrating these kinds of methods into their products, just like the first steps Nokia has been taking with its vibrating tattoos. Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said:

“The perception [of this technology] 10 years ago would differ from today and from what we would get in 10 years’ time […] People literally cannot be without this device […] They don’t feel the same when they are not connected. We live with our phones as if they are part of our body.”

As much as we love all things tech here at Shiny Shiny we can’t help but think that if you need your phone attached to you in order to function and feel lost when you’re not connected, then you should maybe start re-assessing your life and not just gouging out bits of your body to get your iPhone even closer to you and stay in the loop. But hey, maybe we’re just a little behind the times.