DuoSkin 'smart' tattoos to control your mobile

The smart tattoos apply to your skin like any $2 temporary tattoo.

We've all seen those gold and silver flash tattoos that went viral as a fashion trend.

But what if you could have the same imprint on your body and be able to control your mobile devices?

DuoSkin, a new invention by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) allows you to do just that.

The gold leaf fabric, traditionally used to decorate frames and chocolate, is simply cut out in whichever shape and size you want and stuck to your skin.

It's able to store data, act as a mousepad for your devices and display information - while acting as a fashion statement.

"We draw a lot from the usability and also the aesthetics of metallic temporary tattoos into the design of our on-skin interfaces," Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, a PhD Student at MIT, told MIT Media Lab.

The DuoSkin tattoo is also able to control your music and act as a near field communication (NFC) tag to read data off your skin.

"I think there is no fashion statement greater than being able to change how your skin looks," said Ms Kao.

"This is something that we purposely wanted to make accessible to everyone."

To make the temporary metallic tattoo, all you need it to create a design on any graphics software on your computer (Microsoft Paint will do), then cut the design onto tattoo paper with a cheap vinyl cutter and then layer on the gold leaf.

You can then apply it to your skin like any $2 temporary tattoo.

The tattoo creates a circuit allowing the wearer to perfom functions using bluetooth. Photo / Jimmy Day

If you want to spice it up some more, you can even add some LED lights.

"In the future when you walk into a tattoo parlour, you would come out with a tattoo like this", MsKao said.

"They will become an extension of yourself."