Gadgets under your skin

Good news for people who can’t stand being too far from their beloved smartphone: A Canadian company recently learned that our favorite gadgets will work just fine if they are implanted in human tissue.

The Canadian software company Autodeskpresented the research last week at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas.

“A button, an LED and a touch sensor all functioned appropriately when embedded under the skin of a cadaver's arm,” New Scientist reports. “The team was even able to communicate transcutaneously using a Bluetooth connection and charge the electronics wirelessly.”

Autodesk’s Christian Holz says there are clear benefits to implanting electronic devices in human tissue like never losing it. And implantable devices can make way for new functions. “A gadget similar to a smartphone could provide a calendar alert by means of a gentle sub-skin vibration, for example,” New Scientist reports.

The team says it still needs to figure out how to manage medical risks such as infections before the device can be implanted into a person. But that problem has already been addressed for medical procedures such as pace makers and metal stents so it might not be too hard for researchers to tackle.

And already there have been reports of a man who implanted magnets in his wrist to hold his iPod. So a totally, electronically connected world may not be that far off.

Gadgets work under your skin -- but are you ready [New Scientist]

Photo via flickr/trantt28

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com