Years ago I wrote a short sci fi story where a guy invents and open sources a system like crispr (before crispr existed) and takes it to burning man and gives everybody gene therapy to make glowing cephalopod tattoos that can appear/disappear/change color/all the other things that cuttlefish can do.

The technology ends up being repurposed for all sorts of medicines/recreational purposes.

Only after it's released, it turns out it causes some fatal disease a year later, which is only noticed because Burning Man was empty next year.

So just fill your skin with this ink and use a laser to print any pattern.

Looking forward to see human ads

Instead of focusing on tattoos, could we work on this being used for bistable displays, like e-ink but using light pulses to transition each pixel?

Cephalopod camouflage in 3, 2, 1..

Wonder if it would be possible, someday, to make Cellular Automata out of these? Then could have skin level dynamic images.

This is awesome and I hope it catches on, but the idea of "may be useful to people who want to conceal tattoos in some situations" seems far fetched, some make-up layer would probably be a simpler solution, wouldn't it?

> These dyes are encapsulated in nanoparticles of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) — a medical-grade, glass-like plastic that is already used in medical implants and dermal fillers

Nano plastics? :p

Still pretty neat. I like the example picture in the article too

That is so cool. I wonder if this allows for printing images with some kind of 3d printer like thing with a weak uv laser

A cool concept, but regular daylight making it disappear again sounds pretty annoying.

Despite the limitations, that is dope as heck.

I’m older, with no tattoos. My oldest son has several.

I’ve noticed with some amusement that several celebrities ( and non-celebrities ) have publicly announced and explained their recent tattoo removals.

It reminds me of Dr. Seuss’s Sneetches.

Regardless of the actual tech here, "he turned his tattoos off" has "the door dilated" vibes. Very cool.

I'll have to read up on this. I wonder about it as a kind of e-ink?

I'm sure there are a bunch of differences, but fun to think about perhaps.

Reminds me of that Ray Bradbury short story, "The Illustrated Man."

This probably has some cool applications for magicians to do unique tricks where certain things appear on their skin.

is someone bored and going around hn front page editing all the titles. This is the second post i see in the last hour or so that was changed to a worse title.

Why not have e-ink in your skin..

Does it turn the lymphedema off too?

Lol. Allow to violently perforate your skin with a set of sharp needles to permanently inject a pigment that can be hidden.

Just wear a baby skin sticker!

An alternative to "customizable/dynamic fashion" like this would be tags/markers on people's clothes that are invisible to the naked eye but can be detected by AR glasses, making you appear to have different clothing, accessories, tattoos etc to people wearing those glasses.

But man none of the major company execs have a hint about any of the cool applications of AR sigh

Johnny Mnemonic meets Blade Runner vibe: A duo is assigned to hunt a network of data smugglers who use "toggle tattoos" to transport encrypted secrets with zero knowledge. Starring Jason Statham and Liam Neeson. Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Hear me out, implanted lie detectors with displays tattooed into the foreheads of politicians.

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Your auto-immune system does not like ink.