Researchers at the University of Illinois have utilized the modern day advancements in flexible technology to come up with a printable electronic tattoo that can read your vital information and wirelessly report them to a computer.

The device will be used primarily to enhance medical care, as placing it on a user’s skin will allow doctors to monitor the health and healing process of things like surgical wounds. As for the tattoo is actually placed on one’s skin, it’s nowhere as painful as the tattoo’s you know today as it is applied using a rubber stamp. It’s also nowhere near as permanent — the tattoo will last for at least 2 weeks and will then naturally fall off.

Other uses for the electronic mesh are monitoring electric signals from brain and muscle activity, skin hydration and temperature. The benefit for patients would be the fact that this is probably as unobtrusive as medical tracking technology is going to get — the researchers working on it have brought it down to 1/13 of its original thickness.

The researchers will be working further to enhance their flexible wireless charging circuitry, which is the same that is used in the stretchable batteries, and communications capabilities. They’re hoping to bring the device to market a year and a half from now.

First chips that withstand lasers and heal themselves, and now this? We really are in the future.

[via MIT Technology Review, Gizmodo]