Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Google's Skin Tattoo Lie Detector
Google's Motorola division has filed a patent for a microphone with lie-detector circuitry directly onto your throat. Take a look at the amazingly detailed picture below, taken from the patent application "Coupling an Electronic Skin Tattoo to a Mobile Device".
(Coupling an Electronic Skin Tattoo to a Mobile Device)
As the filing explains, in noisy environments it's often difficult to carry on a clear conversation using a mobile phone. A way to cut down on background noise would be a welcome development, and a microphone plastered on your throat, picking up your voice directly, makes sense.The device in question could also be configured to transmit commands to your phone, also useful in a noisy environment and when one's hands are full. Power for the device could be supplied by a variety of methods, including "solar panel technology, capacitive technology, nanotechnology, or electro-mechanical technology."
"Optionally," the filing muses, "the electronic skin tattoo can further include a galvanic skin response detector to detect skin resistance of a user. It is contemplated that a user that may be nervous or engaging in speaking falsehoods may exhibit different galvanic skin response than a more confident, truth telling individual."
First, I'd like to point out that the idea of an electronic tattoo has been around for a while in science fiction. Consider the hand writer from John Varley's 1984 novel Steel Beach. I'd also mention Jack Vance's spray-on conductive film from his 1979 story The Face.
And don't forget about the palm flower from the 1967 novel Logan's Run.
The earliest mention of an implantable device like Google's lie detector tattoo is probably the emotional registers from Brian Aldiss' 1961 novel The Primal Urge. It describes the device as a small metal disk implanted in the forehead, which glows pink when the wearer is feeling sexual attraction.
All, in fact, he told himself, sighing, alarmingly ordinary. "Oh ye of the average everything," he addressed himself, improvising, as he frequently did, a rhymed oration, "Oh, ye of the average height, overtaken by taller folk, undertaken by smaller folk… an average fate one might certainly call a joke."One feature only was definitely not, as yet all events, ordinary: the shining circle. Three and a half centimetres in diameter, permanently fixed in the centre of his forehead. Made of a metal resembling stainless steel, its surface was slightly convex, so that it gave a vague and distorted image of the world before it.
(Read more about Brian Aldiss' emotion register (ER))
The most accurate predictor of an electronic tattoo in science fiction was probably the subdermal microchannels from Paul Di Filippo's 1985 story Stone Lives.
Via The Register; thanks to icecycle for contributing the reference story and the sfnal ancestor.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/19/2013)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Surveillance ")
Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask
'...the Virtual Epiphantic Identity Lustre.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.
Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China
'Rand could effectively be in several places at once...' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981.
Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency
'inscriptions too small to be seen with the naked eye; microscopic data...' - Eric Frank Russell, 1939.
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars?
'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'
Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
