It seems a little out there, but Motorola is actually telling you to get a tattoo! Its Ok though, you’re not expected to actually go under the needle for this one, with Motorola letting people know about a new temporary tattoo which will unlock your Moto X with a tap.
The digital tattoo is based on a talk given by Regina Dugan at the All Things D conference last year, where she spoke about new digital tattoo technology. In this day and age though, the future is here sooner than you think and the temporary digital tattoos, which have been designed by Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group and VivaLnk Inc. are now available to purchase for US residents.
At around the size of a 10c piece, the tattoos are very much temporary. Motorola advised the tattoos will last around 5 days, with general use (Showering, swimming, jogging etc.).
It’s a pretty niche product and is essentially the same as sticking an pre-programmed NFC tag to your skin for 5 days. Motorola estimates the Digital Tattoo will save you between 2-3 seconds every time you unlock your phone (which Google said happens around 150 times a day at Google I/O), so its not exactly life altering.
It seems gimmicky to me, but this is perhaps version 1.0. Perhaps further iterations will bring embedded Bluetooth in them to be used as a trusted Bluetooth device, or other concepts we haven’t thought of.
What do you think? Life altering technology or a gimmick at this early stage?
Doesn’t NFC only work when the screen is on and the phone unlocked? For this to work, I suspect the NFC antenna in the phone will have to be powered and running constantly, which will be a disservice to the battery.