According to Mashable, the tattoo would first serve as a secondary microphone. With a transceiver, its closeness to mouth would allow it to cut out background noise and thus make calls clearer. The microphone would also allow the user to give talk commands to his or her phone without the need for pressing buttons.
The tattoo would also function as a lie detector. The patent calls it a “galvanic skin response detector to detect skin resistance of a user,” which simply means that it would detect if someone were sweating, a sign that the person is not confident and therefore lying.
Motorola Mobility, a company owned by Google, filed the patent last week. It is essentially an adhesive “that compromises an electronic skin tattoo capable of being applied to a throat region of the body,” as reported by RT.
The device could run on rechargeable batteries, solar power, capacitive technology, nanotechnology or electro-mechanical technology.
The patent also notes that the device could be used as a collar for those worried about invasiveness. Mashable notes that there is no mention in the filing about how the tattoo would be removied.
While the news was met with mixed reactions, RT notes that some use could come of it — one user suggested testing the tattoos on politicians. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post cheekily suggested that the lie detector could ruin dates and “impromptu sick days.”
