Friday, August 12, 2011

tiny wires

Here are two blog posts that talk about new, flexible, electronic technology that can be stuck to skin.

It has a lot of potential uses described here and here. Notably, it is a much less obtrusive way to continuously measure medical stats (like heart rate or brain activity). Thinking of when I worked as a nurse aid this would be really fantastic for itty bitty babies (so that you're not taking up too much room on their skin), but also for patients that tend to be non-compliant (who rip off monitors). 

Certainly, I'm sure there will be some other applications. If I let my brain stretch a little I can imagine how this might be used to transmit sound (a new handsfree cell phone?), or, in the not-so-distant future, measure eye movement to control a video game, or measure brain waves to control prosthetic limbs (how cool would that be?!).

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