We’re not sure if you guys have seen or heard of Regina Dugan, the former head of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), who was snagged by Motorola (under Google) to help create the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group. One of the projects the ATAP team worked on was the Motorola Skip authentication accessories for Motorola smartphones. During the annual All Things D Conference last year, Regina showed off another product that caught everyone’s attention: a tattoo that works as an authentication tool for devices.
That conference was more than a year ago and a lot of things have happened to Motorola since then, including the acquisition by Lenovo. This has not stopped the company from pushing out new products though and now Motorola is delivering on the idea shared by Regina. The company has announced the commercial availability of those digital tattoos and for starters, these work with the Moto X.
The tattoos are the result of a collaboration between Google’s ATAP group and VivaLnk. The stick-on tattoos are made out of super-thin flexible materials and they’re actually based on VivaLnk’s eSkin technology. Each tattoo, the size of the new 20-sen coin, is adhesive and lasts for 5 days, even through showering, swimming and other sweat-inducing activities. The electronic circuit of the digital tattoos also form an intricate design.The only downside is that these are built upon the older RF technology instead of NFC.
The digital tattoos come in packs of 10 for US$9.99 (~RM32) but the purchase page has a notice that the products are only available in the US for now. If you’re not a Moto X user but would like to try them out, you can still register your interest.
This certainly is a cool idea but for the tattoos to gain traction, Motorola will have to make them available to more devices, in more countries and for less than the current asking price. In the meantime, it looks like Moto X owners will be getting their 2.3 seconds back every time they check their device.
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