Google patent: THROAT TATTOO with lie-detecting mobe microphone built-in Google's Motorola Mobility division has filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a "system and method" to tattoo a mobile-device microphone with lie-detector circuitry onto your throat. Illustration from Motorola 'Electronic Skin Tattoo' patent application The next must-have bit of body adonment for …
How absolutely ridiculous.
Guaranteed strip search followed by a cavity search every time you try to get on a plane.
It was bad enough when idiots copied bar codes onto themselves, Chinese characters they don't understand and verse from poems they have never read.
Microchips under the skin like my dog?
Embedded battery under the skin with a USB socket in your ear?
Solar panel charger built into you head?
Or is this being used to head off Apple?
No, you don't get it! You will be forced to wear it by some court decision. Worst case scenario, some day you will not be accepted anywhere if you can't show you wear one. What a beautiful future where everybody will be forced the speak the truth! Just trust the governments on this one.
I vote to have our esteemed leaders (aka politicians) be outfitted with these immediately.
and as a bonus there should be some physical discomforter feed back mechanism that activates when lying is detected.
I can hear the sound of all the politicians speeches already.
I know functional watch tattoos have been the subject of science fiction stories since at least 1972:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=312
...years ago, when Ron was flush with money from the sale of the engraved beer bottles, he'd bought an implant-watch. He told time by one red mark and two red lines glowing beneath the skin of his wrist.
From Cloak of Anarchy, by Larry Niven.
Published by Analog in 1972
From the patent application:
"...can be applied to a region of the body via an adhesive"
This sounds similar to a temporary tattoo or could describe a sticker where the circuitry is either deposited directly on the skin or attached to a flexible substrate secured to the skin. It hardly sounds permanent.
What makes this useful? / Why would I want this?
Currently using voice controls requires pulling out your device and speaking your query aloud. This is bad because the query is audible to those around you (makes you look like a prat) and the source of the query is ambiguous (could really be anyone in the room/noise). A throat mic removes both of these problems, it can pickup a mumble (inaudible to others) and the device can be sure that you issued the command. For a device with similar capabilities as the moto x or nexus 5 with always on voice via "ok google" command, paired with a wireless headphone or bone conduction (bone conduction is best as it does not interfere with normal hearing) and the throat mic the benefits are obvious. Simply speak to yourself under your breath and the query is answered (reads google now cards with tts) without removing the device. It basically covers all the times you had to type in a query because speaking aloud wasn't appropriate/feasible or not worth the effort of pulling the device out. You could do the same with an off the shelf throat mic, but they are rather bulky, this device has the advantage of remaining relatively nondescript.
What they don't say is that the adhesive (pat pending) gradually melds itself with your skin. Not the epidermis but the dermis. As it is on your neck and close to major arteries/veins there will be a great reluctance for surgeons to remove said device. Thus it becomes a permanent device.
Just the next step IMHO.
Maybe ridiculous. But then again, did anyone predict 15 years ago that today you would be able to get on your phone for directions anywhere with actual photos of the streets you are driving on a screen with as many pixels as the most expensive digital cameras all by talking to it?
Or that Nokia and Motorola would be eating the crumbs dropped by a fruity seller of fashion conscious PCs and a company who sells fridges?
Lots of things that make no sense today will be ubiquitous in another decade. Except we still won't have flying cars. :(
This post has been deleted by its author
Well, Panzer commanders used them to great effect in WW2. Allowed them to be heard over the noise of their tanks. The thing about throat mics is that even though your mouth shapes the soundforms, the whole waveform echoes through your skull and back down your throat.
A similar technique, IIRC, is used in the artificial larynx, used by people who have lost their natural larynx through disease or injury.
Thinking outside the box a bit, this idea would be useful for hearing impaired people. If you are hard of hearing, a major issue is speech in noisy environments. Various devices are around but they are big and clumsy. You could imagine an environment where the throat microphone signal is transmitted via a smartphone to another bluetooth hearing aid. You need the smartphone to run an app to provide better quality speech etc.
Brilliant idea
ok.... before anyone starts lambasting me, hear me out. Primarily its a brilliant idea used approriately. I think when the user has the tattoo put on the throat there ought to be a second part to the procedure, this is a series of L.E.D lamps (for low energy use of course and to cut down their carbon footprint and all that other bollocks) these said lamps should spell the word 'LIAR' and be surgically implanted in the users forehead, so when it is ascertained that the user is in deed a LIAR, the LED's will light up !!... and thinking on the fly...to take it a step further, implant a sound system in the users head, so not only do we get the visual LIAR sign, it can play a fanfair and induce an electric shock, so the politician...errr..sorry....user dances around like a lunatic so everyone around knows the user is a LIAR. Furthermore, these systems should be compulsory for every single politician, banker, CEO of every utility company, estate agents, lawyers, solicitors and every BBC presenter coming in contact with children .... I would value your input :)
"Thank you very much, but if I want to phone my boss to say I'm home sick with the flu when I'm actually kicking back with a cheap hard-boiled detective novel and a pint or two of Arrogant Bastard, I don't want my phone ratting on me."
Probably best not to include the idea in an article your boss edits before publishing either....
Google is doing the right thing from a corporate perspective. The world is headed this way anyhow, so they may as well get the patents in for the technology that we'll all be compelled to use. They're keeping the more sinister and evil stuff under wraps for now lest we think that they're not jolly nice people.
It's hard to carry on a clear conversation using a mobile phone EVEN IN A QUIET ENVIRONMENT. Wind and breath, for starters. That's why throat mics. They're immune to wind and resistant to ambient noise, which was why they were used in World War 2 in tanks.
"Don't mess around with my body. Period." Well, don't put the bloody thing on. It's not like it's going to be permanently grafted under your skin. It's just a stick-on throat mic (the "tattoo" is actually temporary, like the kiddy "tattoos").
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