Tattoos you can turn on and off

(livescience.com)

43 points | by MortyDev 8 hours ago

12 comments

  • accountrequired 1 hour ago
    Johnny Mnemonic meets Blade Runner vibe: A duo is assigned to hunt a network of data smugglers who use "toggle tattoos" to transport encrypted secrets with zero knowledge. Starring Jason Statham and Liam Neeson. Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
  • flir 44 minutes ago
    Regardless of the actual tech here, "he turned his tattoos off" has "the door dilated" vibes. Very cool.
  • jogu 1 hour ago
    This probably has some cool applications for magicians to do unique tricks where certain things appear on their skin.
  • phyzome 1 hour ago
    Despite the limitations, that is dope as heck.
  • tiku 40 minutes ago
    Why not have e-ink in your skin..
    • filcuk 21 minutes ago
      Because skin is not just loosely hanging on but is attached to the tissue below.
  • teucris 2 hours ago
    Instead of focusing on tattoos, could we work on this being used for bistable displays, like e-ink but using light pulses to transition each pixel?
  • Retr0id 1 hour ago
    A cool concept, but regular daylight making it disappear again sounds pretty annoying.
  • xgulfie 3 hours ago
    So much hype in the article and in the paper for it being "programmable" when it's just... UV reactive? Like, cool but calm down

    > In outdoor daylight conditions, including shade, the UV content of incident sunlight is sufficient to activate PhotoTat to a photostationary state

    https://www.cell.com/matter-light/fulltext/S3117-5848(26)001...

  • silicon3383 2 hours ago
    Does it turn the lymphedema off too?
  • Razengan 1 hour ago
    An alternative to "customizable/dynamic fashion" like this would be tags/markers on people's clothes that are invisible to the naked eye but can be detected by AR glasses, making you appear to have different clothing, accessories, tattoos etc to people wearing those glasses.

    But man none of the major company execs have a hint about any of the cool applications of AR sigh

  • focusgroup0 3 hours ago
    [dead]
  • sleepyguy 3 hours ago
    Your auto-immune system does not like ink.
    • yahthatsart 2 hours ago
      You don't have an "auto-immune system". Auto-immune means your immune system is attacking your own healthy cells.

      Tattoos are fine. There's some evidence that maybe, maybe, immune system responses can be impacted by tattoos. But changes in immune system response does not necessarily mean impaired or negative.