RP155 Man or Machine The Strange New World of E-Skin

 RP155 Man or Machine? The Strange New World of E-Skin

Chances are you own a computer, smartphone, or some other device which gives you information on a screen. But what if you could be such a device yourself? With the development of e-skin technology, our path to becoming cyborgs may have just gotten a lot shorter.

Electronic skin, or e-skin, was first created for use on artificial limbs and robots. Recent improvements, however, have produced a highly flexible plastic film less than two millionths of a meter thick. This film can be worn directly on human skin and connected to sensors which measure one's heart rate and blood oxygen level. These measurements are then displayed on the film just as they would be on a computer screen. And since this new e-skin keeps out water and oxygen, it can be worn for several days. This allows a person's physical condition to be tracked over time.

But we humans aren't the only ones who could be changed by this strange new technology. Scientists believe e-skin will soon have the power to give robots an actual sense of touch. This might enable them to perform surgery and other very delicate tasks without any human involvement at all!

Needless to say, non-medical uses for e-skin are already being planned. Scientists imagine a time when our feelings and states of mind will be shown right on our bodies. Tech companies are looking into replacing handheld devices with wearable gadgets whose displays will appear on a person's arm or hand. The possibilities are amazing, but also more than a little scary. Right now we can still believe that people control machines. But if people are the machines, who will control us?